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Meet Melissa Jaqua of The workshop

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Melissa Jaqua.

Melissa, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I always knew I wanted to do hair ever since I was a little girl. Playing with hair was all I ever loved to do as long as I can remember. I did my first real haircut at the age of 9 on a friend of mine and from there i never stopped all the way into high school when I started taking clients after school and cutting hair in my kitchen for fun and sometimes for money. By the time I got to beauty school, I figured out how to cut hair on my own. I started working at my dream salon before I was even out of beauty school and i ended up getting fired because I didn’t sell enough retail. I then went on my own and worked in a tiny salon with my best friend’s mom where I built my own clientele and saved up enough money to move out to California to pursue my dream of doing hair for TV and film.

In the middle of all that I taught haircare, nail care and make-up at a modeling school, built a booming clientel in my salon and was recruited to become an educator for Paul Mitchell, the haircare company. I also started collaborating with photographers who shot my work and began getting published in hair magazines. When I finally made it to Los Angeles I hustled to earn a position at my dream salon and also met with every single modeling agency to get on their roster for test shooting with their new talent models. I worked with hundreds of photographers until a found a beautiful partnership with one in particular and from there I worked my ass off building my portfolio.

In the meantime I continued working hard in my career as an educator for Paul Mitchell while also working hard to build a new clientele in the salon. My hard work paid off and I began a career as a platform artist for Paul Mitchell. As my career took off I began to travel the country and eventually the world teaching others in my craft how to be the best they can be not only through various techniques in hairdressing but also through business building. I continued my passion for photo shoots behind the camera as my began to appear in many of the Paul Mitchell ad campaigns as well as my work in front of the camera appearing in numerous educational videos for the industry.

My commitment to constant personal growth went to another level when after 14 years of living in Los Angeles I finally began my career as a TV and film hairdresser. My work with Paul Mitchell continued as I built a thriving clientele in Los Angeles and I continued to travel and teach, do photo shoots, and now work on set with actors and celebrities. Exactly 20 years after I moved to LA from Ohio I packed up, sold everything and set out for a new personal adventure living and working in Sydney Australia!

I continued my multidimensional career there and eventually re-connected and fell in love with an old friend on facebook who lived in Califormia and that brought me back to San Diego where I now live and work with my amazing, talented hairdresser\photographer husband in our very unique salon\education workshop call THE WORKSHOP. I also continue working in LA at our second salon location and also work onset as well as traveling and teaching internationally with my husband by my side as my stage partner. It’s a beautiful life and I am truly blessed!

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Every single thing that has happened to me ( good or bad ) has all been in preparation for something amazing that I could have never seen ahead of time! It’s so true that seeds are planted and continually watered and fertilized with hard work long before the first bud ever appears. The potential is always there for everyone but without the suffering and sacrifice and the hard work you’ll never see the tree start to grow or taste the sweetness of its fruit!

My commitment to my dreams and the choices I have made along the road in my journey have had a definite impact on my life in ways that weren’t always easy. Living halfway around the world from all my friends and family that I love so much, missing so many of life’s greatest moments with these people such as birthdays, graduations, weddings, reunions and even funerals. Being in long distance relationships, being married to my career and waiting too long to have children. Having to reinvent my creativity constantly to inspire not only myself but others. Standing on stage or in front of a camera Sharing 1000% of your blood, sweat, tears, heart and soul in front of people who are just as talented as yourself  ( if not more ) and hoping there is something you can share that might change their life for the better!

Working with celebrities and people with fragile egos and making them feel confident and beautiful. Guiding and growing a team of young hairdressers who know so little but have the entire world in front of them; wanting to stop them from making all the mistakes you did but knowing they will still do it their way until they learn. Sometimes just living in a city like Los Angeles where there’re so many people and everyone feels alone. There have been times when I literally felt on top of the world and have been celebrated as the best at what I do and there’ve been just as many times I have been in the fetal position on my bed crying because I felt like a failure or I like I let somebody down.

I think the hardest lesson of all is to be strong enough to not let your ego take control and define you’re self-worth and success. And as they say, never believe what people say about you good or bad. Get up each day feeling blessed to be able to serve others and do it humbly and do it with all your heart. And when things don’t turn out the way you hoped they would don’t assume you are a failure. Look for the breakdown, learn the lesson, get back up, dust yourself off, reinvent your approach and dive back in with all you’ve got!

Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about The workshop – what should we know?
I love being a multifaceted artist. Having submerged myself in so many areas of our industry, I feel so blessed to be able to bring that experience into whatever arena I am standing in at that moment. Whether I’m behind the chair with one of my favorite salon guests, standing on stage facing an audience of a couple thousand people or standing in the dark behind a stage of a live TV show I am the same person filled with so much passion for what I love to do.  All the experiences I have had and the knowledge I have gained from them; with that, I do my best to bring to the table all of that in each moment I touch hair to be the best I can be for that job!

If you’re in my salon in my chair you’re going to get treated like a celebrity and I’m going to use all the amazing techniques I learned doing TV and film in my haircut and coloring and styling on you! If I’m on set, I’m going to be absorbing every little tip & trick I see my talented team members do and I am never afraid to ask for someone to teach me something so I can take it back and share with someone else on stage when I’m in front of the crowd sharing everything I know! And when it’s been a 14 hour day on set and we’re all packing up to go home I’ll stay behind to give you that bang trim you desperately need and that consultation that you’ve been wanting because you’re bored with your hair and you don’t feel pretty lately.

I bring all of my experiences with me everywhere I go and use them as much as I can to be the best I can be wherever I am at that moment! I don’t necessarily specialize in one area however my passion does lie in making sure as hairdressers we are all cross-trained in every texture and formation of hair. As a Caucasian woman, I want to be just as excited and passionate and knowledgable about doing hair on one of my “ clients of color  “ as I am on someone who looks like me. I think it’s so important that we are well rounded and at the very least have experience in all hair types and textures and that’s what I love about our salon. We do a ton of education not only for our own team but we offer it to the entire hair industry on a regular basis.

My husband, myself and our amazing team execute and some of the most incredible workshops in all areas of the beauty industry and we have the best time doing it! We bring in the most talented people we know to teach what they’re passionate about and what they do on a daily basis successfully and we have an incredible reputation for excellence in education and contribution to the industry. My team works very hard to be the best they can be not only for us as owners but for themselves and everyone who walks in our salon doors. I am so proud of them and the level of excellence they hold based on our salon culture.

Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
The people that have played the biggest role in my success are always the ones who have challenged me the most. I have been so blessed to be surrounded by some of the most talented people in our industry on a constant basis throughout my entire career whether it’s insanely talented hairdressers working in the salon with me or amazing platform artists who are some of the greatest teachers our craft or incredible on set stylists who have been my partners in crime in creating some insanely amazing hairstyles or looks that will not move as someone is banging their head while dancing.

Long before any of these people were my life my high school art teacher was my first inspiration. Her name is Kathy Genzman and she has been and continues to be one of my biggest cheerleaders as well as the first person who opened up my eyes to all the wonderful mediums of the arts. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t use something that I learned in her art class and I thank her deeply for her persistence, patience and support in my life and my career. Because of her pushing me to be the best I can, one of my greatest accomplishments was winning a nationwide High school art contest that allowed one of my black & white pen and ink drawings to hang in the White House for an entire year in the President’s corridor.

Another person that has always allowed me to express my creative, out-of-the-box ideas is one of the kindest, generous and beyond talented photographers i’ve ever met by the name of Merritt Vincent. Merritt and I worked together every single day doing photo shoots in the early days of my career and just when I thought no one could ever understand the craziness that comes out of my artistic mind he not only matched me, he took me to another level! The ideas we came up with and executed over the years were beyond anything I could ever imagine on my own!

Lastly, the person that cheers me on regardless of how outrageous and outlandish and out of control my ideas are is my husband Abe Barron. We’re definitely the picture in the dictionary of what opposites look like when they attract however what we create together is so unique and truly one of a kind! It’s beyond anything we could ever do individually and it’s always hard work but it’s always worth it!

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