May 1, 2017

Meet Katie (KT) Prendergast of refleKTion SAFE + SUSTAINABLE Salons in Lakeview East

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to Katie (KT) Prendergast.

Katie (KT), please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I have been cutting hair since I was 5. No really, I started with Barbie dolls. Every doll had to have a different haircut. By 14 I graduated to friends and family. It was a no brainer when all my peers were running off to college that I should go to Beauty School. I was a natural. I worked all through school at Mario Tricocci, where I learned the importance of customer service and polished technical skills. As early as then I began teaching. Always having other students approaching me for advice and even teaching onstage for demonstrations.

When I graduated beauty school I made the decision that I needed to do both cutting and coloring, so I started my journey with Frank Gironda. It was here that I refined my technical skills and started my journey with education. I helped develop a salon education program, and taught advanced cutting and coloring classes. By 23, I was educating for Redken. My passion for education only continued to grow through the years, eventually moving to TIGI and currently teaching for Original & Mineral.

With education being such a strong driving force within, I realized a gap between what I could create on my guest, and what my guest could replicate. It was then that I went after my dreams of owning my own business. I started in a little suite in downtown Lockport and soon expanded to three. I created classes geared towards the client to help them achieve salon quality hair themselves.

A few months into my journey my best friend joined me on this crazy adventure called entrepreneurship and shortly thereafter we opened our Chicago location and then our Naperville location in 2015.

I consider myself of more of an image consultant than just a hairstylist. I help create looks for people that work with their face shape, skin tone, and lifestyle. I take EVERYTHING into consideration. But the reason why people love coming to me is because I TELL THEM what we are doing based on all the information provided. I am not afraid to tell someone what will and won’t work for them. Everyone wants to have a strong enough trust in their stylist to let the stylist, “Do whatever you want.”, and mean it.

Around the time I opened the business my son started to develop allergies and asthma. There was a month where we were in the hospital 3 times. Feeling frustrated with the doctors opinion that there was nothing I could do but medicate, I started on a journey for a long term solution. We soon found that a lot of what he was experiencing could be prevented by eliminating harsh chemicals and highly processed foods, specifically milk in his case. I soon began to realize that I have one of the most TOXIC JOBS EVER!!!! But I am absolutely OBSESSED WITH WHAT I DO, so I had to figure something out. I learned a lot in the 6 months of researching product. First, there is NO SUCH THING AS ORGANIC HAIRCOLOR!!!!! I also learned of the long term effects of common ingredients found in most of our beauty products on the market today. After months of research I Finally I found a product that uses safer alternatives and ACTUALLY WORKS!!!!!!

So to sum it up in one sentence…….. We are a SAFE+SUSTAINABLE salon that has an intense focus on education for the salon professional and the guest.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Entrepreneurship has been one of the most difficult and rewarding challenges we have ever undertaken. The biggest lesson through the entire process has been that being a leader means to be a servant. Our staff, our customers, and our business always has to come first, and there is no one else to pass the buck to when times get tough. Its super rewarding but it is also a lot work and a bit of pressure to know that other people rely and trust you for their livelihood.

At first we struggled with defining who we were as owners so we could define who we were as a business so we could find the right team and put the right culture in place to reinforce who we wanted to be for our customers.

Balancing work and life has been difficult as well as we are business partners and best friends who have to make sure that neither partnership negatively affects the other. It took a while to work out the kinks and to learn that open, honest communication spoken with the best of intentions is the best way to ensure our friendship and our business relationship remain intact and at their best.

Please tell us about refleKTion SAFE + SUSTAINABLE salons.
We own and operate two SAFE+SUSTAINABLE salons (one in Lakeview and one in Naperville). We believe in “beauty from the inside out” and create personalized cut and color designs for our clients taking into account their lifestyle, beauty budget, skin tone, eye color, style and needs.

We search high and low to find what we consider the safest most effective sustainable products and tools available during your service.

We utilize Original & Mineral hair color as well as haircare and styling products. This line defines itself by a commitment to reducing the chemical overload on our hair by replacing harsh chemicals with natural extracts and active minerals wherever possible.

We are a certified GREEN CIRCLE SALON to ensure our spaces are as sustainable as possible through an innovative salon recycling program that collects and reuses everything from HAIR (that’s right – hair!) to product bottles to packaging.

Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
When I was growing up I sucked my thumb. My parents did everything they could think of to get me to stop. One of the things they tried to bribe me with was a puppy. Well in kindergarten I remember being pulled from class because my dog that I got as a bribe, was at home having puppies. It was so exciting to watch this daylong event and it was even better to raise those 6 puppies for the next 8 weeks. I can still remember the walk from school to home so clearly. I was just brimming with excitement.

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