“In The Chair With” spotlights the incredible hairstylists in our community who are giving us major inspiration. Each week, they discuss their personal hair and career journeys, what they’ve learned from their clients, and their top hair care tips.
“Every time I get into the community of women of color, women with natural hair, you see so many similarities that you feel like you grew up in the same house,” Stacey Ciceron tells ESSENCE. Like most children growing up in Black households, Ciceron received her first relaxer around the age of 10. “I did not learn to appreciate my hair,” she says. “I come from a Caribbean background, so it was rough.”
By 17, the Trinidadian rediscovered her natural hair, but soon, chopped it all off. However, a moment she found “extremely liberating” had a 2-hour expiration date before introducing her big chop to her family. “They just thought I was nuts for shaving my hair off,” she recalls. “But if I didn’t do that, I wouldn’t be where I am now.”
After the Brooklyn-born hair stylist attended North Carolina’s Dudley Cosmetology University, she went on to work across the world on fashion shows, editorial shoots, and with celebrities. Then, her partnership with Oribe began. “Everybody had that little bottle,” she says, being invited to help develop their Moisture & Control Collection as a brand consultant in 2018. In her latest venture with the brand, Ciceron traveled to Kenya to collaborate on their Holiday 2024 Collection, which featured Kenyan artist Thandiwe Muriu.
Below, Ciceron explains her favorite products, debunks hair myths, and tells us what she’s learned from her clients.
Her current favorite products
First of all, everything in the Moisture & Control Collection from Oribe is going to be my favorite. But honestly, every time they launch something new I get to try it out, and that literally becomes my new favorite. But in this season, again, just being in this spirit of excellence and serving on a high level, I’m doing my own personal research. I’m like ears to the ground, ears to the streets, trying to figure out what people are loving. I have teenagers in the house, so that’s always good. I always know what’s the latest edge control, what’s the latest mouse, and I try it.
I have my hands playing in a lot of products like curl mouses, edge controls, and treatments but just an Oribe version of it. They have so many products in queue to launch. I just try to squeeze my little ideas in there. Some have made it to the surface and some are on trajectory for next year and the year after. But certain things like a curl mouse are great for all hair types. I think next year I might get into trichology. I’m really into scalp care.
Her favorite hairstyles
My go-to is transformations. The transformation is where all of the juice is because the women come in with their head hanging and they leave with this sense of confidence. So, if I can get you cutting, because a lot of times women of color are afraid of cutting. They don’t even want to call it a cut, a trim. But the main thing is to get the hair healthy, create an amazing shape, silhouette, because nothing is going to look right without that. And then providing them with the styling, whether it be like a silk press or a wash and go or an updo, but just that transformation.
A hair myth she wants to debunk
Beauty itself is the myth. Textures are beautiful. Lately, I’ve been talking about what the perfect wash’n go is. I can show you how to get a super defined wash’n go, but don’t think if you don’t have definition in your wash’n go, you’re not beautiful. The biggest myth that I want to debunk is what beauty is for people. Short hair is beautiful, long hair is beautiful. Thick hair is beautiful, thin hair is beautiful.
Growing up in a Caribbean household, your hair is your beauty, your crown, your glory. Our identity, our hair is our freedom. So why should we restrict that and box that in to say, what is beauty? How you express yourself is your own beauty.
What she’s learned from her clients
First of all, they taught me to embrace my gift. For many years I just saw it as a skill and not a gift. At the time, I’d just be doing a twist out or a wash and go or a roller set. I learned from them that it’s more than that, that I’m more than just a skill. It’s just something about the presence, the encouragement, and just using that presence, that healing space.
Also, I love my mature clients. They’re like mother figures. I learned a lot about how to speak, how to carry myself, and how to believe in myself from them. Just in terms of coaching, being a mentor. I can’t even pinpoint one lesson—they’ve given me parenting advice and wife advice.
How she uplifts her clients
What I’m realizing is showing up and tapping into what their needs are, what they express, and providing encouragement, reinforcing that they’re unique and helping them to embrace their own beauty. Then, equip them with the education so that they can [take on] the biggest challenge: how to style their hair. If I give them the tools with a little boost of confidence, I put the battery in the back through encouragement, through this kind of skill that I pass on to them.