When I first started doing hair professionally, I was scared to say my price out loud. I wanted to be agreeable, affordable, and booked—but deep down, I was shrinking. I didn’t factor in my time, energy, or even my product costs. I was just hoping the number felt “safe.”
But low prices brought high stress—and clients who didn’t value what I brought to the table.
In this post, I’m sharing the mindset shift that helped me start charging with confidence, clarity, and intention. If you’ve ever felt nervous to raise your rates or feared what people would say… this one’s for you.
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In high school, I started doing my peers’ hair. I was passionate, talented, and still figuring things out. Doing hair in the basement of my mommy’s house. But what I didn’t realize was that just because I had a gift didn’t mean people would automatically respect it. One of the first people to teach me that lesson was a guy I went to school with. He will remain unnamed in this case. He had hounded me down for weeks to do his locs multiple times, and one day I accepted his appointment request—he decided to skip out on paying me. Just like that.
I didn’t pick up that comb because I was confident—I picked it up because I had to. My mommy was busy, appointments were too expensive, and I was tired of waiting on someone else to show up for me. So I did what a lot of Black girls do when life gets real: I figured it out.
I’ve been meaning to create a space like this for a while now—where we can have honest conversations about life behind the beauty, behind the business, behind the curated photoshoots, and the cute lip combos. You know… the real stuff. The stuff we whisper to our close friends when the kids are asleep, when we get together in the salon, the laptop is finally closed, and we can just be.
The beauty world felt a shift when Ami Colé announced it would be closing this fall. For me, this wasn’t just “another brand shutting down.” This was personal.
Ami Colé was more than skincare and lip oil. It was heart, heritage, and home. It was a beautiful reminder that melanin-rich beauty deserves luxury too. And knowing that its founder, Diarrha N’Diaye-Mbaye, named the brand after her mother made it even more special. So when I read her open letter in The Cut, I felt the weight. Her words weren’t just about business—they were about identity, sacrifice, and legacy.