Melissa Parizot’s work is a minimize above the remaining.
The celeb hairstylist and co-owner of IGK Salon, who goes by MelissaWillCutYou on Instagram, has chopped the locks of fashion stars like Sofia Richie Grainge, Paige DeSorbo, Brooks Nader and even Sir Paul McCartney. Her bespoke cuts, which at present have a five-month waitlist, will set you again between $400 and $600.
However when Parizot moved to NYC in her early 20s, she was making simply $8.75 an hour as a salon assistant.
“Surviving in New York on $280 per week is absolutely tough, however it’s additionally the factor that pushed me. It pressured me to like what I do,” the sweetness professional tells Web page Six Type.
Parizot additionally shortly discovered that even at a high salon, competitors for shoppers may be fierce — so she harnessed the ability of social media to achieve out to influencers, providing them free trims in alternate for posts on their platforms. It labored.
“I received just a few ladies in, after which their associates needed to come back in too. And I nonetheless do hair for these ladies immediately,” she says.
Parizot’s large break got here in late 2018, when she lopped Hailey Bieber’s lengthy, blond locks right into a chin-length bob. The mannequin’s new ‘do went viral, and requests from magnificence editors and new shoppers began pouring in.
She says Bieber, who has superb hair, was excited by the prospect of a magnificence reset; most celebrities and fashions topic their strands to each day harm by the usage of scorching instruments and extensions, and a giant chop could make a serious distinction within the well being of their hair.
“You’ll be able to maintain onto hair that’s not working and have the size that you really want, however what if we work with what you’ve gotten and attempt to make your hair look its finest the place it’s at proper now?” Parizot says.
One other early excessive level got here when the hairstylist discovered herself within the dwelling of a music legend.
“I received the chance to go to Paul McCartney’s home to do his spouse’s hair, and that was fairly epic,” she remembers, including that she wound up giving the 19-time Grammy winner a trim too — however was capable of preserve her composure as a result of she “didn’t develop up listening to the Beatles.”
“While you don’t actually understand how cool it’s, you don’t fangirl,” she says. “Celebrities are actual individuals! Discretion is at all times actually necessary.”
Whereas a brief minimize would possibly’ve catapulted her profession, nowadays Parizot is finest recognized for her lengthy, bouncy, layered appears. She additionally choose chopping shoppers’ hair whereas it’s dry relatively than moist, which supplies her a full image of the hair’s pure form and texture as she works.
“I’m positively recognized for very large, voluminous blowouts,” she says, however provides that she at all times tailors her cuts to her shoppers’ particular person face shapes and life: “These voluminous appears are attractive, however on the finish of the day, how many individuals are roller-setting their hair at dwelling?”
And given the appreciable value and ready time hooked up to her appointments, Parizot additionally considers the grow-out interval earlier than she begins snipping away; in spite of everything, a few of her shoppers fly in from different continents for her companies.
“As a result of my waitlist is so lengthy, I attempt to actually create a haircut that’s going to final people who 4 to 5 months till they will get in once more,” she says.
