Educating with Passion

Choose Beauty: Adrienne Rogers

Adrienne Rogers, Product Club's national technical training manager and owner of Bang Salon in Philadelphia.

Adrienne Rogers is a busy professional with many roles: Product Club's national technical training manager, owner of Bang Salon in Philadelphia and senior colorist at Cutler Salon in New York City. But when she was 19, her life was bartending in Philadelphia after she dropped out of school as a dance major.

"I had gotten really good shifts and was making a lot of money for a young woman," she says. "I was working with a 35-year-old and realized we were making the same amount of money and that he'd been there for years."

Knowing there was no growth for her there, Rogers talked to a friend about her options.

"She suggested beauty school," she says. "My parents were in education and had definite ideas about the direction of my life. Hairdressing wasn't on the list and though my father was supportive, my mother was not okay with it," says Rogers. 

"It's funny how creativity manifests itself. I had always been good with my hands. I loved to make jewelry, sew and fix things. Hairdressing hit them all on the head," she adds.

After initial resistance, Rogers mother eventually broke down and let her daughter do her hair. "I became her every  ‘third week' color slave. When I moved to NYC, her first words weren't ‘that's great!'  They were ‘who's going to do my hair?'"

For 11 years, Rogers worked in Philadelphia and for the past nine years she has had many rich work experiences in NYC.

"Working at Cutler Salon I built a fascinating clientele, worked with countless people in the fashion industry, did makeovers for magazines and television and began my relationship with Product Club," she says.

"The ironic part is that a good deal of my career is now focused on education, just like my parents."  

Rogers is going on 20 years in the business and splits her time between Bang Salon in Philadelphia-which she opened with her husband-and Cutler Salon in New York to do her favorite clients. She also travels around the country educating for Product Club.

"I am lucky to be in this industry. The decision to go to beauty school was only the beginning, and the truth of the matter is you can take this career anywhere your imagination allows it to go," she says.

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