Scott Sellers' Metamorphosis from Dancer and Drag Queen to Stylist, Men's Groomer and Educator

BARBERING TODAY's profiles of individual barbers in order celebrate their lives and talents and encourage networking throughout the industry. This month's profile follows the interesting journey or Scott Sellers (@hairhassle)who is a national educator for Great Clips, who helped develop the company's virtual training program for 4,000+ locations.

In the late 80s/early 90s, Scott Sellers’ aunt owned a salon. The Wilmington, North Carollina native was about 11 years old and accompanied his aunt to hair industry events. He says, “It was the tail end of the big hair era and I loved the gravity-defying creativity! Everyone I met was accepting and nice. I just felt like I wanted to be around them.” Sellers also discloses this was the about same time he started to realize he was gay. 

In his formative years, Sellers was involved in theater productions and dance. Just before attending college at East Carolina University in Greenville to study dance, he told his parents he was gay. He says, “As an only child, I was a little worried telling them. They took it in stride. My mom has gay friends and my dad was just happy that I was going to college to ‘do something with my life.’”

During college, Sellers discovered the fabulous world of drag queens. He said the BEST wigs were always worn by hair stylist queens. With the competitive atmosphere, Sellers wanted his alter ego, Lauren Scott, to look her best, so he learned how to cut and style his synthetic wigs to perfection. He says, “Getting into hair and going to beauty school was just a natural progression.”  

After college, Sellers moved back to Wilmington and earned his cosmetology license via a Pivot Point curriculum offered by the community college. During his time in cosmetology school, he worked as a receptionist at the Great Clips in South Port, North Carolina.

Once licensed around 2005, he was on the cutting floor. “With my past wig work, I mastered women’s styles easily,” Sellers says. “At Great Clips, a majority of the clientele are male. I became obsessed with clipper cuts and fades. Men’s designs and silhouettes are precise with the detailing.” 

The Great Clips location that Sellers worked at was a franchise that was part of a 12-shop portfolio owned by retired airline executives. The owners had Sellers hold technical classes and train all the stylists of their 12 franchise locations for a cohesive experience for all their guests.

In 2010, Sellers attended a Great Clips Corporate training class in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and he liked how the class schedule was set up and the education they offered. He decided to make the big transition from working with franchisees to corporate.

Now Sellers is a national educator for Great Clips and prior to Covid, used to travel throughout the United States and Canada training salons. During Covid he helped develop the Great Clips virtual training program for 4,000+ salon locations.

He says, “I could never decide if I wanted to be an entertainer, stylist or teacher, so I became all three!” Lauren Scott has been on hiatus for the past five years.  

If you'd like to nominate yourself or a peer for a barbering profile, please email the name of the barber, contact information and a paragraph about why they'd make a great profile to stacey.soble@bobit.com. 

Read about Cookie Zamarripa, who found acceptance and respect in the barbering community and how the recent tragic school shooting in her hometown of Uvalde, Texas, propelled her to gather her fellow barbers and act.