As a beginner in the industry, no doubt you’ve experienced a time where you felt unsure of yourself, uncertain of your talent and capabilities in the salon—what if I’m not good enough? What if I mess up? What if they leave unhappy?

The truth is, every successful stylist has experienced the fear, the uncertainty and the anxiety. Even the most successful stylists had challenges in cosmetology school, felt the anxiety of servicing their first client, and felt the fear when applying for their first salon job. But they persevered through the challenges.

The expression: ‘Success is a journey, not a destination’—this expression holds true as we talk to some the industry’s finest about their challenges, their successes and their first salon jobs.

“Would you like me to give you a formula for success? It’s quite simple, really: Double your rate of failure. You are thinking of failure as the enemy of success. But it isn’t at all. You can be discouraged by failure or you can learn from it—so go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can. Because remember that’s where you will find success.”

—Thomas J. Watson, President of IBM, who oversaw the company's growth from 1914 to 1956.

Beth Minardi
Celebrity haircolorist, educator, Joico Vero K-Pak color spokesperson

Beth Minardi was a born educator. She earned her degree in early childhood education and theater, and began a career teaching kindergarten. While attending graduate school, she snagged a small part in a movie where she played a “beat-up, redneck gas station attendant.” “I was mesmerized by the hair and make-up trailer,” Minardi says. “I became absolutely fascinated with make-up and color.” While there she met Douglas Marvaldi, an Intercoiffure member who owned a small salon in Florida, where he encouraged her to attend beauty school.

“He said to me, ‘You can go to grad school all you want—but unless you get your license and go to cosmetology school, you’ll never be behind the chair.”

Beth Minardi, as a child with her mother.

Minardi in 1978.

Minardi had found her passion—but her family didn’t think it was worthwhile to pursue. “They weren’t very supportive of the profession,” she says. Yet, Minardi made the tough decision to quit grad school, gathered the $1,000 it cost to enroll in beauty school, and began attending classes at night in Orlando, Florida.

After graduation, she got a job renting luxury apartments to people. “I rented an apartment to this little old lady who just retired from Clairol,” she says. “She told me Clairol was looking to hire people with college degrees and the next thing I knew they flew me to Atlanta for an interview.” The training was an intense, one-month program where she spent a week each on four areas: semipermanent color; permanent color; bleaches and toners; and special effects, highlighting and lowlighting.

“I was naturally good at color selection because I have a background in art—painting and hair color are similar. I understood early on that just because you mix blue doesn’t mean you are going to get blue hair. Formulations are more scientific than that—it’s a lot more addition and subtraction,” she says. “No one can be creative until he or she is technically proficient. I wanted to be creative. But I had to become proficient first.”

When Minardi returned to Miami, she was the only non-wealthy person living in a wealthy apartment complex. So, she began doing the hair of her wealthy neighbors. “They gave me $10 each,” she says. “I taught myself to color hair in my apartment and got models for Clairol shows.”

Eventually, she was promoted to New York with Clairol. “My first job was to organize cluster classes in chain salons,” she says. She also worked in product development in the Clairol lab. And even toured the country performing hair color makeover sessions on TV for Clairol.

For a short time, Minardi worked in a beauty salon in Orlando, where she was responsible for cutting, coloring, washing/rinsing, setting hair and putting clients under the dryer.

“Because it was a commission-based salon, there wasn’t a lot of camaraderie,” she says. “I had to overcome being young, I had to get clients to know me— while they were becoming confident in me, I had to gain the confidence in my own skills.”

In 1986, with husband Carmine, she opened Minardi Salon in Manhattan. “I decided I still wanted to teach hair color, but I wanted to do salon color on a full-time basis,” she says. She stayed at Clairol and continued to consult and teach for Logics. “I worked in the salon all week and 20 weekends a year taught hair.” In the early ‘90s, she worked for Redken as Special Hair Color Consultant and helped develop Color Fusion. “Throughout my career, I’ve never stopped teaching; it’s something I passionately love,” she says, referring to her Minardi Beauty Focus classes, Color America with Beth Minardi, in-salon education, industry trade show education, and even one-on-one job shadowing. (The Minardi brand even has its own color-protecting wet line!)

Minardi accepts her Lifetime Achievement Award at NAHA 2010, presented by Sam Brocato and MODERN SALON's Maggie Mulhern.

Most recently, Minardi became the spokesperson for Joico Vero K-Pak color and was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at the North American Hairstyling Awards for her outstanding career in advancing the professional colorists’ skills in technique, placement and application, which “was truly a dream come true.”

“It takes time, pain, practice, commitment and learning,” she says. “Even though I went to all the color classes available, it was up to me to learn everything. The best thing I did was never thinking I was finished learning. Never becoming complacent. Always remaining passionate.”

Minardi is currently growing the Minardi Luxury Color Care line of shampoos, treatments and styling products. And she continues to write, teach, work behind the chair at her salon and develop new coloring products. She also has a blog on modernsalon.com.


Check out more industry icons talking about their first salon jobs:
Beth Minardi: My First Chair
Faatemah Ampey: My First Chair
Michael Shaun Corby: My First Chair
Sherri Jessee: My First Chair
Kimberly Kimble: My First Chair
Patrick Mathes: My First Chair