Healthy Hair, Extensions, and Growth Serums: My Stylist Spills It All
Hey friends! Welcome back to the podcast. Today I have a very special treat for you, I’m sitting down with the woman responsible for the one thing you ask me about more than anything else: my hair!
I’m joined by my wonderful hairstylist, Nicole, owner of Tribe Hair in Mountain Brook Village. Nicole isn't just a talented stylist with 25 years of experience (including a decade doing celebrity hair and makeup in Beverly Hills!); she’s also a dear friend who has completely transformed the health of my hair.
We get so many questions about my specific color formula and how I keep my hair looking shiny and thick, so I decided to bring her right to the source to answer them all.
In this episode, we’re chatting about:
Why you can’t just take a photo or a color code to any stylist and expect the same results (and what you should ask for instead!).
Why Nicole leans into golden tones for my olive skin and how the right "sparkle" changes everything.
Nicole breaks down the world of K-tips and wefts, including the "mini-service" that helps with fine hair and confidence without a huge commitment.
We talk honestly about Nutrafol, Minoxidil, and the surprising kitchen staple Nicole has all her clients using for stronger hair.
The one product Nicole says almost everyone is missing in their routine that is causing hair to snap.
Why embracing your natural texture (and staying away from certain AI-generated "perfect" hair photos) will make your mornings so much easier.
Nicole is such a wealth of knowledge and has such a heart for making women feel beautiful and special. Whether you’re struggling with thinning hair, looking for a new style, or just want to know how often you actually need to wash your hair, this episode is for you!
Connect with Nicole:
Instagram: @Nicolevhair
Location: Tribe Hair, Mountain Brook Village (Birmingham, AL)
-
Deanna: Hey, friends! Welcome back to the Well and Worthy Life Podcast. Today, I have a special guest with me—my hairdresser. I guess, Nicole, is that what you're called? A hairdresser? Or what do people say?
Nicole: Yeah, hairstylist. I don't care. Either is fine.
Deanna: Hairstylist, whatever. Anyway, she does my hair, and she’s a very important part of my life. I get questions about my hair all the time, so I thought, what better than to bring Nicole right here on the podcast to answer all those questions? So, Nicole, thank you so much for joining me today.
Nicole: Oh, yeah! Thank you.
Deanna: And if you hear a little squirming, if you're watching on YouTube, you can see I've got my little Louie right here in my lap. We’ll hopefully keep him still and quiet during the recording.
But first question: this is a question I get on Instagram so much of the time. What do you do to my hair, Deanna? So, tell everybody what we do, and tell them why we can't just give them a "formula"—because somebody actually asked for the formula you use for my hair.
Nicole: Right. So, around Deanna's face, I do a lighter shade. I use a 10O on her hair so it looks like highlights, but without having to actually highlight it, which keeps the hair healthy. I go all around her face and around her ponytail at the back with the lighter color, and then through the rest of her hair, I do a darker blonde base so she has dimension.
Every four or five months, we do highlights just to keep a "pop," or lowlights every once in a while if it's looking washed out. But we mostly just keep bright blonde all around her face so it looks like highlights while keeping it super shiny.
Deanna: And I think that's what's so important—what has changed the health of my hair is not highlighting it to death so that it stays soft. I had somebody say to me once, Nicole, that I had too much gold in my hair, but I love the golden colors. It’s great with my tones. When I’ve tried to go with ash—which you’ve never done, thank goodness, but I’ve had stylists do that to me before—it looks so bad on me. When you're looking at somebody, don't you look at their coloring, too?
Nicole: Absolutely. With you, I feel like because you have a bit more of an olive tone, if I took away the gold and added more ash, it would look flat. It wouldn't have as much sparkle.
The reason everyone can't use the same formula is because it depends on the amount of gray or your natural base color. I've had a few people who follow you come in to get their hair done by me, and they wanted the exact same thing you have. I had to do completely different formulas on them because of the way their hair lifts or takes color. Some people’s color naturally lifts more golden, or they have more ash, so I have to add gold into it to give it that buttery color.
Deanna: I should’ve started from the beginning. How long have you been doing hair, and what got you into it?
Nicole: I have been doing hair for 25 years. I'm 43, but I was rebellious. Instead of going to a good college like my mom wanted me to, I went to hair school and paid for it myself just to frustrate her. Then I moved out to LA at 21 and started doing celebrity makeup and hair. I did a lot of makeup for billboards, ad campaigns, red carpet events, and I worked in a salon in Beverly Hills for a few years. I didn't like being stuck in a salon because I wanted to travel with clients. I did that for 10 years, and then I ended up moving back to Birmingham.
Deanna: Why in the world would you move back to Birmingham from LA?
Nicole: My high school best friend and I had stayed in touch our whole lives. Somehow, he talked me into coming to visit, and then I decided I wanted to marry him, so I left LA.
Deanna: Do you miss LA?
Nicole: I don't miss the makeup and hair part of it, but I miss the food, the weather, and just the amount of things there are to do. The weather is always perfect, so everything is outside. In Birmingham, we get a lot of rain and humidity. I miss being able to use your outdoor space all the time.
Deanna: I like to be outdoors, too. I like the weather out there, but I don't think I could ever live there. This is a great place to raise a family. Now you have two children, too. And I like the people in Birmingham.
Nicole: It's a good community here, for sure.
Deanna: You've built a good community in your salon, too. How long ago did you open your salon?
Nicole: I think it’s been three years. Not very long. But I’m really lucky that all my clients are like family. I love everyone genuinely, and it doesn't feel like a job. I'm so excited to see everyone every day. I look at my schedule and think, "Who do I get to visit with today?" It's peaceful. My space is just really calm and nice. I'm thankful I have a happy place to call my own.
Deanna: It is peaceful in there. You don't have ten hairdressers working at once; it’s not crazy. You're not trying to do five clients at once. You make your clients feel very special, and that’s a big part of why you are so successful. You're the first stylist I've worked with who really works with my schedule. I know you’re busy, but you’ll work with me to get me in, and I know you do that for everybody.
Nicole: Yeah, if I have to come in on my day off sometimes, I’ll do that for people.
Deanna: Which is very unusual and very nice. So, let’s get back to hair. Do people bring in pictures of what they want? Now, it’s probably people bringing in Instagram photos.
Nicole: I like photos because, a lot of times, what people are describing is an image in their head, but the colors or tones they are saying might not be what I’m envisioning. A photo is always going to translate better. Sometimes someone says, "I want to go super blonde," and really it’s just three more highlights around their face.
I like photos because we can share the same vision. The only thing is, there are a lot of AI photos now. Everything AI is going to be more perfect than it could ever be. It’s a little bit harder to replicate AI because I would like my hair to not have one hair out of place, too!
Deanna: What about when people come in for a specific haircut? Like me— I've got super straight hair. We can make it curl with an iron, but if I came to you with a photo of a really curly style, you’d have to tell me it's not going to work.
Nicole: I just explain, "What do you like about the photo?" A lot of times people show that perfect, curled photo, but they are never going to do that to their hair at home. I explain that the style looks cute because of the layers the curls are creating. If your hair is sitting even with those layers, you won't see them.
I want everyone to be able to just get out of the shower, rough dry their hair, and feel pretty. I like to put effort into my hair, but I don't want my clients to waste their day styling unless they just have fun doing it. I try to make it easy and realistic. What do you do at home? What size brush do you use? How much time do you want to spend?
Deanna: That is so important. As I've gotten older, I feel like it is vital to have the right haircut so that if I just want to wash and dry it straight, it still looks fine. You have to have a good haircut for that. Now, I know you do extensions, right? Tell me about those. Are people using them for length, body, or what?
Nicole: I do mostly K-tips, which are individual strands, and sewn-in weft extensions. Clients who want a ton of length or thickness with no maintenance get the weft. I also have a newer service—a "mini K-tip" install. If the front of your hair is getting a little finer, especially with hair loss, I’ll put two little mini rows in to fill it up. It gives you that "dream hair" but it's not very expensive, it stays in for three months, and there's not a lot of maintenance.
I even have people who use clip-ins. I’ll show them how to use them and cut layers around their face to hide them. I want everyone’s life to be easy.
Deanna: Are they real hair?
Nicole: Yeah, it's human hair. Even with the K-tips, I have clients who don't color their hair but want highlights. I’ll put highlighted K-tips in so it looks like they have highlights while they keep their natural hair healthy. It doesn't damage your hair at all if you take care of them.
Deanna: That was my next question—do they damage your hair?
Nicole: They can if you aren't taking care of them right. But I watch my clients' hair. With K-tips, the bond surrounds your hair, so it's encapsulated. When I take them out, I crush the bond and slide it out. If I see any breakage, I've told people they are "grounded" from extensions and have to take them out because I want everyone to have healthy hair.
Deanna: I saw a friend on Instagram who took her extensions out, and her hair looked so thin and horrible at the bottom. What do you think about things like Nutrafol or vitamins for thinning hair?
Nicole: I had bad hair loss when I was trying to lose weight; I think I was cutting my calories too much and not getting enough healthy fat. I tried Nutrafol and felt like it helped, but I was also doing all the shampoos and everything at once. I think it's a good vitamin, but I don't know if it helps with growth. Minoxidil is the most effective thing I've seen for hair loss.
Dermatologists will tell you that we don't know the exact cause of hair loss in every person. It could be diet, supplements, stress, health issues, or prescriptions. For me, I try to drink olive oil every single day—just a couple of tablespoons of good olive oil. It helps your skin and provides a good fat for your body, which makes your hair stronger.
Deanna: Now you’ve got us all drinking olive oil!
Nicole: It sounds weird, but I have a client who said that in law school, she was eating fatty chips and bad food, and her hair was the thickest it had ever been. There’s something to having enough fat in your diet for healthy hair. Our hair needs fat.
Deanna: We've demonized fat for so many years! I think people who take GLP-1s for quick weight loss end up with hair loss because they are cutting back on those fats. Nutrition is so important. I get asked about collagen all the time, too.
Nicole: I take collagen, but at this point, I think my coffee is just used to it! It's part of my routine, but I don't think anything is miraculously better. I use Vital Proteins from Costco.
Deanna: What would you say is your number one tip after all these years?
Nicole: A lot of people don't use heat protectant. People say, "The front part of my hair isn't growing," but it’s often just breaking. People don't know which products actually have heat protectant. For example, the Color Wow Dream Coat or K18 leave-in molecule—those are great products, but they don't have heat protectant in them. K18 just came out with a spray called Heat Bounce which is my favorite. Everyone needs a heat protectant, even if you just blow-dry.
Deanna: How many days a week should someone wash their hair?
Nicole: I used to be on the "don't wash it often" train, but now dermatologists are saying you're just building up oils. Clean hair and a clean scalp are the healthiest options. A couple of times a week is fine. If you have damaged blonde hair, don't wash it every day—give it a break. But if you have thick, healthy hair and you exercise every day, wash it! You aren't going to hurt yourself.
Deanna: When I was a runner, I washed mine every day. Now I do it twice a week, and I always feel so much better on wash days. Let’s tell everybody where you’re located and where they can find you.
Nicole: I’m at Tribe Hair on Canterbury Road in Mountain Brook Village. Texting is the best way to make an appointment. My Instagram has my phone number, and the salon number is a cell phone that can be texted. I do call people back, but text is easier since I’m so busy during the day.
Deanna: We’ll link all that in the show notes. Any final thoughts?
Nicole: I’d say you have to work with your hair, not against it. That makes your life so much easier. Also, have realistic hair goals! I’m always open to answering questions, even if you aren’t a client.
Deanna: You're so sweet. Y'all, she is so good, and she has great outfits, so you need to be following her on Instagram anyway. Thank you for joining me, Nicole!
Friends, if this resonated with you, be sure to share it and tag us on Instagram. Check the show notes for all the links, and if you’re listening, go watch us on YouTube so you can see us! Thanks for joining us. Keep choosing what makes you feel well and worthy.
