News

Beauty and the business beast

By Erin Williams
ewilli47@mscd.edu

With several tattoos covering her arms, ears and upper body, Jenelise Pulliam, 30, doesn't look like the next face of a new beauty campaign for women in Denver.

But she is.

Opening her own beauty salon, Salon Instrukt, she hopes to clean the idea of women's beauty issues one shampoo and haircut at a time.

Pulliam was a student at Metro taking business management, English, French and biology, which is her major. She had to drop her classes this semester in order to get her business up and running, which has proven to be more work than she thought. She hopes to be back next spring to continue classes and eventually get a bachelor's degree in nursing, so she can do more clinical skincare at her new salon.

"School is on hold for right now because this is a harrowing process. It's been an ordeal. I'm hoping that they'll understand that I'm a straight-A student and this is just a terrible time for me," she said.

The name of her salon was based on the realization that women are inundated with wrong ideas and negative messages from magazines and their friends. Her design is to transform the typical salon client from helpless to independent regarding a beauty routine to follow after the appointment. This design is becoming a reality.

Salon Instrukt will offer workshops that teach women the basics of hair and skin care. The salon will even print how-to guides that will help their customers after they leave the classes.

"It's really hard to get clients to follow up with after-care and to take that reliance off of me as their skin therapist. I don't want to hold my knowledge hostage," she said.

Pulliam said she wants to teach women how to have an active role in their image and to be able to spend five minutes a day taking care of themselves at home.

She attracts most of her clients by word-of-mouth. Pulliam does admit that when someone walks in to meet her for the first time, they are taken aback by the artwork on her body and the big spiral earrings dangling from each earlobe. But she quickly wins them over with her soft-spoken voice, her friendliness and her devout belief in outstanding customer service. "I can always tell the clients that were referred to me, and no one told them (about her unique look), but it only takes me a couple of minutes to get them going and feel OK, and then it becomes a non-issue."

Pulliam wasn't always a woman with a distinct business plan. She said she felt trapped by never living anywhere but Denver. So, in 1999, she broke free from home to discover what else was out there. She said she left in the hopes of finding whatever was missing in her life. She said she just wanted more. During this time, Pulliam learned a lot about herself and figured out what she wanted to do with her life. She finally understood that she was lost and was running away from herself, not Denver. So she made her way back home and changed her life around.

"It was a hard lesson realizing that all of those cities didn't have the answers for me; the answers were inside of me," she said. "I really focused on who I wanted to be as a person and I worked towards that."

Gushing on the finishing touches of her new salon, Pulliam said that even though putting this business together has been a difficult journey, she is happy with the final product.

"It has definitely been a personal rewarding experience. I definitely learned that I can't rely on my ideas of how people perceive me as being true. I think that people perceive me a certain way and I found out they don't," she said, "and I've learned a lot about communicating with others."

As for finally opening the doors of her new salon, Pulliam said she's overwhelmed with satisfaction over making her dream come true.

"This is something I'm really looking forward to and being able to call the shots," she said, "and provide my clients with what I want and giving them what I feel they deserve."

Salon Instrukt is located at 1407 Ogden St. For more information, call (303) 831-0266, or visit www.saloninstrukt.com.