By: Wet “Nation Cutie” CatesEvery stylist has a starting. For some, it’s braiding cousins on the porch or experimenting within the kitchen with a scorching comb. For Gabrielle “Onyx” Bates, the spark began with one thing many ladies of colour keep in mind from childhood, a Kenya Doll and a complete lot of curiosity.
“My grandma used to purchase me these Barbie heads,” Onyx says with fun. “I’d mess them up with curlers and every little thing I wasn’t supposed to make use of. However I beloved it.”
What started as childhood play rapidly revealed itself as function. By the age of twelve, Onyx was already experimenting with actual strategies, utilizing her allowance to purchase packs of hair from the wonder provide retailer. At some point she tried her first fast weave on herself. The outcomes stunned even her.
“I did it so good individuals thought it was my actual hair,” she recollects. “That’s after I was like… okay, I would really be good at this.”
Initially from South Florida, Onyx ultimately took her expertise to Atlanta, a metropolis identified for its aggressive and extremely revered magnificence scene. It didn’t take lengthy for her work to show heads. Positioned within the entrance window of the salon the place she labored, she discovered herself drawing consideration from individuals strolling by who stopped simply to observe her type.
“Individuals would are available in and inform me I impressed them,” she says. “That’s after I knew Atlanta was going to be completely different for me.”
Her background in Miami gave her an edge. The way in which she layered, curled, and styled hair carried a particular aptitude that rapidly set her aside in a metropolis crammed with expertise.
However success didn’t come with out its challenges. Early in her Atlanta profession, a salon scenario didn’t align with the respect and surroundings she believed professionals deserved. As an alternative of shrinking in that second, Onyx turned the expertise into motivation. Inside six months of shifting to town, she opened her personal salon, Vainness Lure of Atlanta in Buckhead.
“That scenario pushed me to maneuver quick,” she explains. “All the pieces aligned so rapidly. I discovered the area and constructed one thing that was mine.”
Proudly owning her personal salon allowed her to create a tradition rooted in management and dignity. She had seen firsthand how stylists could possibly be undervalued, and he or she was decided to do issues in a different way.
“I noticed how different individuals ran their companies, and a few of it simply didn’t sit proper with me,” she says. “After I opened my very own salon, I may lastly say, ‘We’re not doing that right here.’”
That philosophy carried into each side of her work. Shoppers weren’t simply appointments. They had been company deserving of care, consolation, and excellence.
Right now, as Onyx expands her presence in Los Angeles, that mindset continues to form the expertise she provides. Sitting in her chair isn’t nearly getting your hair achieved; it’s about moving into an environment of luxurious that feels intentional and welcoming.
“We do luxurious over right here,” she says. “You shouldn’t should go all the way in which to Beverly Hills to get that stage of therapy.”
From refreshments and stress-free touches throughout appointments to an surroundings designed to assist shoppers unwind, Onyx focuses on creating moments the place magnificence and well-being meet.
“You by no means know what somebody goes by way of once they sit in your chair,” she says. “I would like them to go away feeling higher than once they walked in.”
Her ambition didn’t sluggish when she turned a mom in 2018. If something, it intensified her drive.“Motherhood slowed me down, but it surely additionally sped me up,” she says.
“You begin fascinated about what sort of life you wish to construct on your kids.”
Balancing enterprise and motherhood meant working smarter and dreaming larger. It additionally bolstered her perception that girls don’t have to decide on between household and ambition.
For Onyx, the 2 exist facet by facet.
Her journey has already taken her from South Florida to Atlanta and now Los Angeles, however she sees the subsequent part of the Onyx Empire stretching far past U.S. borders. Cities like Paris, London, and even Tokyo are already on her radar.
As a result of for Onyx, success isn’t nearly location, it’s about affect.“There’s no one like me,” she says confidently. “And also you’re imagined to really feel that method about your self.”
And the Honor Goes To…
In celebration of Ladies’s Historical past Month, Hype Hair proudly honors Gabrielle “Onyx” Bates as one of many business’s standout stylists. A visionary redefining luxurious, management, and excellence behind the chair.
From styling dolls as a younger woman to constructing a magnificence empire that stretches from South Florida to Atlanta and now Los Angeles, Onyx continues to boost the usual for what it means to steer within the magnificence business.
Now it’s time to indicate her some love.
Join with Gabrielle “Onyx” Bates, discover her work, and expertise the luxurious she brings to each consumer:
Instagram: @ok.onyx1
TikTok: @ok.onyx
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Comply with her journey, help her work, and have a good time a stylist who continues to encourage the subsequent era of magnificence professionals.
As a result of when expertise, imaginative and prescient, and confidence meet behind the chair, the outcomes communicate for themselves.
The Highlight Continues
At Hype Hair, honoring stylists like Gabrielle “Onyx” Bates is about greater than recognition. It’s about celebrating the ladies shaping the way forward for magnificence.
Ladies who construct companies.
Ladies who uplift their communities.
Ladies who remodel creativity into legacy.
This Ladies’s Historical past Month, we proudly highlight Onyx for her innovation, management, and dedication to excellence behind the chair.
However the highlight doesn’t cease right here.
Throughout the nation and around the globe. Gifted stylists are constructing their very own empires, one consumer at a time.
So we wish to know:
Who ought to Hype Hair honor subsequent?
As a result of the subsequent magnificence icon might already be on the market and when she is, Hype Hair might be able to have a good time her.
