“When I was a kid, I used to style my grandma’s hair. Now, as a 40-year-old, I’m in love with hair. Just after Hairdresser’s College in Sweden, I went to London to do the diploma course at Vidal Sassoon. I was 19 and spent as much time clubbing as I did at school. After that, I worked for nearly a year for Toni & Guy in Newcastle. Eventually, I moved back to Sweden and had a break from hairdressing for a couple of years. It was one of those moments in life when I didn’t really know what I wanted. Then, I started work for one of the biggest hairdressing companies in Sweden and stayed for 10 years. I left there five years ago and was self-employed, renting a chair and freelancing and planning to open my own space. Now I’m 40 and everyone else seems to be 20, I find myself assuring them that it’s ok, that it can take years, not to worry. It’s weird to think I had a break for two years because now I never stop – and I don’t want to – I hardly have a weekend off hair right now. It’s paid off, because we have now won eight awards including Hairdresser of the Year in Sweden in the avant-garde category.

ON SOCIAL MEDIA

When I opened the salon, I reflected on social media a lot, and realised that a lot of salon owners take control of social media. I guess that’s because they are worried about staff leaving, and taking clients with them. In my salon, I really try to encourage the whole team to use Instagram. It seems that there is some sort of rule that all photos taken in the salon are the property of the owner. But I can’t stand behind that, because I think it’s important for everyone to feel that they can build their own brand—even though we are working collectively. And I think it doesn’t matter: we know that many customers come for the hairdresser themselves, not the concept or the salon or whether the hairdresser is big on Instagram or not. I don’t think as a salon owner that we should hold our staff back in that way.

I have two Instagram accounts – my personal one and one for Little Faktory, posting session work that I’ve been doing in the studio, with a little bit about myself. I wanted to start documenting the work in the salon, everything from the process to finished work: before and after. Now that’s part of the routine, a regular stage in my working process. I like taking pictures of anything, really. Even if I have a day off, I’m taking pictures of things that I see. One of those images, the first that I posted from the backwash – I think it was Hair Brain – went viral. Overnight I gained 1,500 followers. I realised that’s what people wanted to see, so I just kept going. It’s a marketing space for me and the salon. I’m currently working on a home office with space and time to do more planned social media campaigns – it’s a full-time job in itself!

ON THE SALON

It was about the end of 2019 that I decided I wanted to open a salon, but Covid put things on hold. With my boyfriend, Johan, we began some intense planning along with some other people in the team, to have them involved early on. We needed an office, we wanted a studio. Then we acquired the space and knew it would work. Our architects had just launched their own studio, so they wanted their first project too. They came up with a colour palette and at first I thought: there’s a lot of pink. But everyone calmed me down and it became about pink details. You’ve seen my hair – it’s a lot of crazy colour – and I worried that if I had to decide all the details, it wouldn’t work but I trusted them and they pulled it together. There is colour, but not too much. And they considered what we physically looked like –the team is part of the interior as well, so the salon couldn’t be too crazy. That’s what I mean about trusting professional people – I really learned this through the process. The salon pleases so many different kinds of people. Everyone likes it in here.

ON HER TEAM

Our tag line is ‘The Colorful Kind,’ which represents lots of different hairdressers with different backgrounds. We are colourists, we like colour and we are kind people. It’s about the diversity of the team and that everyone is welcome. In the past year, we’ve grown from eight to 12 and everything is working really well. We also have two guest artists: from LA and Italy; talent is moving to Sweden because of us! We even had one client fly in from London. That was in my five-year plan, that people would want to come to us from London.

We opened four or five months before the #MeToo movement began and I felt strongly that I wanted to create a network for an industry with a lot of women. It’s nice to collaborate. I’m involved in a group, The Salon Crossover. We meet other salons, helping each other out and inspiring each other with ideas. That’s what KAI is about, the creative collective Josefin Gligic, Annie Ankervik and myself started in 2018. Annie and I, we were actually competitors – we met through Hairdresser of the Year in Sweden. We’ve been in competition so many times and yet we are still friends. It’s about sharing knowledge: someone else picks it up, they do something with it, and then they bring it back. It’s like a dance—that’s how I feel with the salon team. One Tuesday a month, we have a Little Faktory training night when the salon is closed. Different people lead: there’s Cat, Emily, our cutting director; Anika and Valeria who are in charge of colour. And I thinkit’s good for people to feel that they have their expertise and can teach others. It’s good for the group; it’s not about me doing everything. I’m a strong personality so I’m going to have to take a step back from the salon floor and let the Little Faktory team develop.

What I won’t miss is that as a hairdresser, you’re always fighting the clock – it’s really stressful. When I have more time off the salon floor, I want to do another ’zine. I think it’s like a nice way to add value to your work. With social media, it’s just a swipe, then ‘bye, bye’, you’re gone. I originally came up with a name Little Faktory from a previous ’zine I did.

ON INSPIRATION

I’m inspired by both good and bad things – I coloured my hair like the Ukrainian flag, for example. I pick up stuff all the time from the environment and world events, so I’m conscious of what’s going on around me and the need to respond to those global shifts. For example, before I opened the salon, I made sure that the whole team went on a course with Urban Academics to learn about textured hair. Sarah and Chanel, who run it, are the experts on textured hair, educating the whole of the Nordics region and Scandinavia. Because we have a diverse population, we need knowledge about all hair types. Currently, I’m really into craft. I’ve got friends who are doing glassblowing. It feels organic, I love the colours of the glass and it really inspires me. In terms of the industry, I love what Japanese hair dressers are doing currently, and Japanese street style. I’ve been to Japan a couple of times and it’s always so inspiring.

ON LEARNING

Looking back to when I was in school, there were a lot of learning gaps. Your life journey can impact your work. 10 years ago, I did some therapy and worked a little bit less at the time. I needed to do that work with myself. I would have struggled to open a salon without that learning. Now, I know the direction I’m going in: having done the groundwork, I know who I am and can bring on and take care of the team. I’ve learned that with a big plan, it doesn’t always turn out how you wanted it to be, so I make small plans all the time. And then there are some creative ideas that I want to pursue. I can’t tell you what they are, but you’ll see!”