The Painted Grove

Sometimes color isn’t about changing the color at all…

For this brunette, I wanted to leave the tone where it was and simply give the light more to find.

A gentle glaze of ARETÉ Professional Alchemic Color—equal parts Clear + .33 with 3.5 vol—not to noticeably change her brunette, but to maximize shine, glow and reflection.

Styled with ARETÉ, keeping the finish soft and full so the light could move through every bend.

The color still felt like hers. We just gave the light somewhere to land.

I keep coming back to this photo. There’s something about it that captures the movement we so often lose in a still image. A little blurry, a little imperfect. Just soft, simple beauty.

ROMANTIC NATURALISM

I’ve been trying to find the words for the world I want The Painted Grove to live in.

For years I’ve leaned into different ideas and aesthetics, molding them one way or another. Some too modern, some too childlike… dancing between the lines of romance, beauty, maturity and imagination. Reaching for a vision that always felt just out of reach.

Not fantasy for the sake of escaping real life.
Not a version of beauty that has to be manufactured.

Something more grounded than that.

There is so much romance already here.

Sometimes the journey brings you to the answer…

In a garden at the end of summer.
In hair catching the last bit of evening light.
In old things that have weathered beautifully.
In something grown, gathered, worn, lived in.

The imperfections of life showing us where raw beauty sits, while still holding hopes, dreams and imagination.

We don’t have to escape ordinary life to find a little magic in it.

Romantic Naturalism.

Wild. Undone. Free.

Real life can be romantic and beautiful.

The beginning of a world I’ve been seeing in my head for a long time.

Welcome into the mind of The Painted Grove.

Here hair feels like a story.

Musings on romantic brunette… 🤎

Nature rarely gives us one flat tone. There’s shadow and warmth, movement and little glimmers of light.

I love creating hair with that same canvas in mind… letting tones shift, depth live between the light, and movement make it all come alive.

My version of beauty has always been a little wild, romantic and free.

But the more life I live, the more I understand that those words have to mean something beyond an aesthetic.

Wild means remembering our connection to the natural world. Romantic means seeing the beauty and value in what we’ve been given. Free means believing we can choose a better way when the old way no longer makes sense.

For me, truly embodying those things means creating in a way that honors their original meaning.

Connection. Preservation. Peace. Stewardship. Leaving things better than we found them.

That’s why organic matters to me. Why low-tox matters. Why clean hair color and sustainability in the beauty industry matter.

We are given this beautiful life, this earth, these hands that get to create, and this incredible gift of connection with the people who sit in our chairs. That gift comes with responsibility.

To care about what we put on our bodies and the bodies entrusted to our care. What we breathe and touch every day behind the chair. What we wash down the drain. What we throw away. What our choices leave behind.

I don’t want to create an artificial version of beauty while living in a way that contradicts everything I say beauty means to me. I want what I believe and how I create to match.

I love beautiful hair. I love really beautiful hair. 🤍 But I don’t believe beauty has to come at the expense of our health, our planet, or the generations that come after us.

I don’t think beauty should destroy what it claims to celebrate. I think it should care for it and preserve it. We are charged with leaving it a little better than we found it.

That is the kind of beauty I want to spend my life creating. 🤍🌿

The people. Always the people. 🤍

There are so many exciting things about this industry, but this will forever be the part I cherish most.

Finding the people with genuine souls, huge hearts and big laughs. The conversations that go a little deeper. The kind of people you can dream with, learn from, laugh until your cheeks hurt with…and just share this beautiful life with.

This weekend filled my cup in so many ways, but these humans were at the very top of the list.

Feeling incredibly grateful for the relationships this industry has brought into my life and for the ones that just keep getting sweeter with time. 🤍

What a gift it is to find your people along the way.