Giving a super cut is also a work of art

Joy Silen is a hairstylist, psychologist and artist all rolled into one

Joy Silen Title: Manager, hairstylist Job: Manages Supercuts on Keeaumoku Street, and styles hair as well

Joy Silen works hard for her money, and Supercuts in Hawaii appreciates it. The division of Minneapolis-based Regis Corp. made her a manager eight years ago, and it relies on her heavily to help train new hairstylists and help open new outlets in the state. Currently, Silen is manager of the company's Keeaumoku Street outlet, adjacent to Wal-Mart, where she works as a hairstylist and supervises a staff of 10. Licensed in the trade since 1988, Silen last week said successful hairstylists have to be passionate about their work, which besides cutting and styling hair involves a lot of personal interaction with the customers.

Silen, 51, is a graduate of Waipahu High School. She also has an associate of science degree in legal assistance from Kapiolani Community College, and worked briefly as a legal secretary in the early '90s. She is married to William Silen, a landscaper, with whom she lives in Kaneohe and has two daughters, ages 23 and 14, and an 11-year-old son.

Mark Coleman: How long have you worked for Supercuts?

Joy Silen: Oh, about 14 1/2 years, I guess. It's been a long time.

Q: When did you become a manager?

A: That has to be about eight years ago, I think.

Q: How did that come about?

A: I guess the manager at the time of the store I was working at felt that I could handle the job, because she was leaving, and she referred me to the general manager for an interview, and I got the job. I was actually a shift manager at the time, too.

Q: But you still cut hair, too, right?

A: Oh yes, yes. I wouldn't have taken the manager's job if I still couldn't cut hair.

Q: Where did you start out as the manager?

A: At Kailua. I'm currently the manager, though, at the Keeaumoku (Street) location.

Q: How many people do you manage at the Keeaumoku outlet?

A: I currently have 10 people.

Q: They're all hairstylists?

A: Two of them are receptionists, although one of them is working into the apprentice program.

I'm also one of the trainers -- I'm one of the certified technical trainers for the company. I've been doing that for five years. I assist our artistic director* for Hawaii. I think I've worked in half of the Supercuts in Hawaii, including Maui, the Big Island and Kauai.

Q: When you say you've worked in each of them, what do you mean?

A: Meaning that I would help them out, actually work on the floor for a few days.

The first stores we opened up on the outer islands was in Kona (in 1999), and I would fly out and work there for a week at a time. Everyone kind of took turns.

I did the same thing on Maui, when we opened up there about four years ago, and we currently have three stores there. We have one on Kauai and four on the Big Island.

Q: Is there a lot of turnover among the hairstylists?

A: In the industry that's very common. Stylists, No. 1, they realize it's not a job for them. They don't have the real passion that would give them success. It's not an easy job really, because you're dealing with people's personalities.

Q: What kind of training do they have to go through?

A: Here in the state of Hawaii you're required to have a license, either a cosmetologist's or a barber's license. The cosmetology license requires 1,800 hours of training, and barber's, I believe, is 1,300.

Q: How are they able to rack up those kinds of hours?

A: There's actually three schools in Hawaii that teach these things. One is at Honolulu Community College, which takes two years, and they (the students) complete with an associate's degree. Then there's two trade schools. One is Hollywood Beauty College in Aiea, and the other one is in downtown Honolulu, at Hawaii Hair Institute.

Q: So what do you do in terms of training these hairstylists?

A: Usually when they come to work for Supercuts, they've already completed their education, so we teach them a specific advanced technique.

Q: What are the main tools of your trade?

A: Main tools? You mean like clippers ... (Laughter) ... blow-dryers, razors?

Q: Yeah.

A: Well, scissors is your most important tool. And, of course, when you're talking about that, you're talking about one piece that can cost anywhere from a hundred to a thousand dollars for a pair a shears.

Q: Are these things purchased by the company?

A: It depends on the salon that you work at. But Supercuts does have available the clippers, the attachment blow-dryers and any other products and tools. The shears are more personal, so the stylists that come out of the schools, they usually have their own.

Q: As a hairstylist yourself, do you have regular customers that have followed you from store to store?

A: Absolutely. You develop a rapport with your customers. They follow you because of your skills and because of your personality, and the rapport that you've developed with them over the years.

What we do is still an art, and, as you know, with art it draws emotions, and touching on that with people and their personalities does make a difference. To me it does.

Q: What's the longest any customer has been with you?

A: I have a whole family that has followed me from the Kaneohe Supercuts, where I started actually. Now that I'm at (Keeaumoku), the family followed me, and that whole family has been my clients, I would say, for the last 12 years.

Q: Are you kind of like a bartender, in that your customers talk about their lives a lot with you?

A: Oh, absolutely. We're like psychologists. There are a lot of things that people share with me that will go with me to the grave. It's amazing what people will share with a total stranger, but because you're the hairstylist, they'll share it with you. It really can touch people's lives.

Q: What's your favorite part of the hairstyling process?

A: The cutting. That's my favorite, that's my forte.

Q: What do you do if you make a mistake?

A: Depends on the mistake. (Laughter) OK? But I look at it this with way: With hair, it grows constantly. I think, if anything, the damage is done emotionally, and it takes time to get over it. In that case, the mistake will last about 30 days. It takes time to get over it, but it can be fixed, redone. It's fixable.

Let me put it this way: I can do an excellent haircut for someone, but if they don't like it, it would be a mistake. So the mistake may not necessarily be that it was cut wrong, because our technique is not the only technique out there.

Q: Is men's hair easier to cut than women's hair?

A: Easier? Not really. Everybody's different, but I think the shorter the hair, the more difficult it can be. That's the way I look at it. We do, I would say, 70 percent men, and it can be more difficult because, No. 1, you're dealing with shorter growths of hair, which means you're getting closer to the growth pattern, which can be more challenging.

Q: What colors are people choosing mostly these days for hair-coloring?

A: Red.

Q: Is that mostly a women thing?

A: Oh no. I think over the years I've seen more men get into coloring their hair. And if you look at the generation these days, a lot of them started out with the athletes. They belonged to a team, and a lot of the guys got bleached out. So it was a team thing, part of their uniform. So you have kids as young as 9 or 10 getting their hair bleached out. And many men, now that they're older, they're challenged to stay competitive in their hair styles.

Q: Who cuts your hair?

A: Myself and everybody. I don't have a specific stylist.

Q: Why not?

A: You know, there are stylists who only want certain stylists to do their hair. I'm not one of them. I like to have different styles. I've had my hair shaved in the back. Right now I've got hair down the middle of my back. And I started out with hair long enough to sit on.

Q: Do you ever see someone with a bad haircut and just want to grab them and fix it for them?

A: (Laughter) Yeah. All the time.

Q: You keep your mouth shut, though?

A: If I don't know them, yeah, I'm not going to say anything. But if they would ask me, I'm definitely going to make a recommendation.

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CORRECTION Tuesday, July 10, 2007 » Joy Silen, hairstylist and manager of Supercuts' Keeaumoku Street outlet, assists the company's artistic director in training new hairstylists. A story on Page C1 in yesterday's morning edition incorrectly said she assists the company's district director. Please see the applicable Corrections Page for more information.