29 years old • Fort Collins
Owner and founder of Beetle Barber
What’s your occupation? Explain your career, accomplishments and professional highlights.
I’ve always considered myself an artist, and I express that best through my occupation as a master barber. I’ve specialized in masculine grooming for almost a decade now. With every tailored haircut, beard trim and shave, my hope is to create lasting connections and provide intentional service. I also love helping aspiring barbers improve their skills through training and sharing tricks of the trade. I believe that sharing haircutting knowledge only benefits the community; the better barbers I can help create, the more handsome and happy customers they’ll have.
Tell us about yourself, your history and how you came to be where you are now.
My first steps were on Loveland soil. As a preschooler, my teacher told my mom, “Your daughter will be an artist.” At the age of 8, I was selected as the 2004 poet of Loveland’s beloved Valentine Re-Mailing Program. My family moved to Arizona when I was 10, but we’d get back to the Rockies every summer. In high school, I took college art courses and got my driver’s license, which is when Daisy, my ’69 Volkswagen bug and eventual business mascot, came into my life. After I moved back to Colorado in 2013, I got licensed to cut hair. In 2020, Beetle Barber was born.
Tell us something unique about you.
I knew there were elements of the typical barber service that were missing, and I felt called to change that with my business. Haircuts may look good when leaving the shop, but I was determined to find out how to create longevity in my cuts. A lasting cut is a lasting client.
What do you consider your biggest accomplishment or challenge you’ve overcome, either professionally or personally?
I opened Beetle Barber’s doors to the public in August of 2020. Guidelines and restrictions in personal services changed the way people received haircuts, but even with limited supplies and fears running high, people still needed them to feel good. It was a challenge to get my business off the ground and keep a smile on my face as I worked through uncertain times. With persistence and faith, I found a way to continue to grow and flourish.
Where do you see yourself in five years? In 10 years?
In five years, my husband and I plan to open a mom-and-pop barbershop (he’s a barber too). We hope to provide what Beetle Barber does on a grander scale and reach even more folks. Our priority is to keep it small, reminding people of the shop they grew up going to or have seen in old movies: Two to three chairs, the smell of shaving lather and light aftershave, swept floors, odd yet interesting decor and a sense of belonging and trust you can’t get at many other places. In 10 years, we hope to have children and continue to improve the community by sharing our gifts with our patrons and educating up-and-coming barbers.
What piece(s) of advice would you give to your younger self?
Just because you do things differently doesn’t make you weird. It makes everything you do more special. Your gifts will someday take you to horizons and bring people into your life you couldn’t have even dreamed up. Doing the right thing and listening to your gut will lead you to all that was meant to be yours—what you want, wants you.
What made you want to become a barber?
When I was finishing high school, I had hopes to go to art school. My mother suggested going to a trade school and doing hair so I could get my education quicker and earn an income while doing something creative. When I enrolled at Cheeks in Loveland, I discovered that cutting men’s hair was a natural fit for me. The main draws were getting to serve many people throughout the day and having a variety of customers with different interests and topics to chat about. I am also drawn to the detailed work and the amount of tools used to create intricate haircuts. There aren’t many barbers that are open to doing various styles, but that’s the fun thing about the industry.
Explain your business model and how it differs from other NOCO barbershops.
Beetle Barber’s mission is to provide cuts that are meant to be lived in, in a space that is meant to feel catered to you. You’re supposed to experience a sense of luxury and needed “me” time when you receive a haircut, yet many salons fit their clipper cuts in between ladies’ color services, and a lot of barbershops try to do them in 20 minutes or less. Everyone deserves an upscale experience where time is invested in them, and Beetle Barber is a shop where you will be heard and have everything possible done to execute an above-par service.
Tell us about your ’69 Volkswagen bug, Daisy.
Beetle Barber earned its name from my walk-in shop days as I was identified as the chick barber who drove the Bug. As I gained clientele, they would check the parking lot to see if I was working that day rather than parking and popping their head in to see. I figured that if I wanted my clients to find me after opening my own business, they needed a clear identifier in their search. “Beetle Barber” was a no brainer. People often wonder if the bug was involved with mobile cuts; it wasn’t, but I meet new potential clients with hair that hasn’t met my hands everywhere I go. The bug is a perfect opener.
