Join Texpert Collective co-founders Tippi Shorter and Kauilani Goodwin for a conversation about the origins of Texpert Collective, what they’re planning next for the brand, and how they’re changing the landscape of textured hair care for professional hairstylists.
Q: Can you explain for people who aren't familiar, what Texpert Collective is and why you created it?
Kauilani Goodwyn: We created Texpert Collective after attending a panel discussion about textured hair at New York Fashion Week about 4 years ago. There were well-known hairstylists and beauty editors sitting on the panel, and the audience was professional hairstylists and some consumers. After the event, Tippi and I were talking about how it shouldn’t be the case that consumers are scared to get their hair done by a professional because they don't feel like the professional knows what they're doing with textured hair. Whether it was wearing it in its natural state, transitioning to its natural state, or even styling it naturally, and that's a problem. It all goes back to cosmetology school. None of us got that education in cosmetology school. We learned what we knew about textured hair through trial and error. So that's when we thought “The industry needs something like this, but who's going to do it?”. That’s when we said we're going to do it. This was our opportunity to help open up that space and give the professional back the authority on textured hair so that you don't have consumers trying You Tube University, but going and seeking out their professional for what to use on their hair, and for the professionals to have that knowledge and authority.
Tippi Shorter: We wanted to make sure that the education wasn't like ‘I know everything’ or ‘she knows everything’. It was about let's bring in everybody in this space who is excelling and bring their perspective to share. This is why we do free education every week via Facebook Live. Every Monday at Noon [EST] we do Facebook Live. We do it on cut, color, styling, enhancements. We also have had a couple of business courses but will be expanding on that. Before starting that we also knew that there was a lack of tools there to help the stylist that specializes in texture really excel, so we wanted to bring forth tools for textured hair, so our first offering was the curved shear for cutting curls.
Q: What has the reception been like from the hairstylist community?
TS: Really great. Two years after we first brainstormed Texpert Collective, we hosted our very first TEXTURE Beauty Jam event in New York City during Fashion Week. We were at full capacity in the venue, plus standing room. We had two major L'Oreal professional product companies support us with product as well as financially. All we did was market to the people who have been following us. The overwhelming response was emotional and incredible, and then we knew that people were hungry for live education. The reason why that's so important is that when you go to large educational events that focus on cut, color, and styling, there’s usually there’s a texture category where they clump cut, color and style into one category under texture. That’s silly because you can cut, color, and style textured hair. So clumping it into one category, versus celebrating all of them was something that wasn't happening. So we hosted the very first TEXTURE Beauty Jam that was all texture specific to a super overwhelming response.
KG: We had people coming up to us saying the energy in the room was amazing. The feedback that we got from that event was awesome. It was definitely a catapult to keep going with what we had brainstormed about originally. So definitely a good response from our audience.
Q: Have you noticed other brands or educational resources starting to do what you're doing in the textured hair space? If so, what makes Texpert Collective unique?
T: There are companies that have existed for a really long time that are now diligently adding texture to their curriculum, diligently adding texture to their Instagram, to their offerings in education and I'm excited. I'm excited to help people usher in something that should be a normal situation. It shouldn’t be abnormal for a brand to have people on their team that excel in texture. It shouldn’t be abnormal for an entire team to be able to excel at all hair textures. So we’re excited that we are helping people understand the importance of diversity and inclusion, so I don't feel a way about people doing it. I think they should have been doing it and they didn’t. I'm glad they didn't because it allowed for us to do it. Now that they're continuing to do it, that's cool but it’s not going to stop what's next for us.
KG: It also helps stylists within our community because it opens up opportunities. A lot of these companies that hadn't been in the texture space before are now opening up opportunities to be a part of those texture teams and open up doors for stylists in our community. They’re going to be able to push for more texture in the industry through the different companies that are now trying to get into the space.
TS: Our network of Texperts is massive, so brands who could be looking to expand their teams can look to us to see who we are working with.
Q: If there were a stylist who wanted to become more educated about styling textured hair, where would you suggest they begin?
TS: Fundamentals. We tell people all the time, don’t take a curly coloring class or a curly cutting class until you’ve gone through fundamentals. You would never start coloring your hair until you’ve done color theory. So you shouldn’t start coloring and cutting textured hair until you’ve done texture theory, which is the fundamentals. That being said, Texpert Collective is launching a textured hair education app for professional stylists. In the fun words of one of my friends, it's kind of like Match.com for your hair. So if you were my client and I wasn't sure on what products to use on your hair for a particular style, I would input all of your hair details and the style that is best recommended for your hair details, and the app would then populate all the best products for that style and your hair. This is an app that we have been working on all year and we hope that it will be launched in the fall.
Q: How does your work with Texpert Collective differ from the various work that you've done throughout your careers?
KG: From my perspective, it's kind of like finding where you belong. This is where I belong. This is a space where we’re able to share our knowledge, we’re able to highlight educators that can share with the community the things that they’ve learned over time. To be a baseline for texture and knowledge for masses of people. It's knowing and having a purpose to open up that space for other people and for everybody to be able to win. It’s rewarding. It’s work, but it's rewarding. A lot goes into it. Besides all of the jobs and the busyness, being a parent and a wif, at the end of the day, all of the work that gets put into it and seeing the results that come back from it and that continue to come back from it is rewarding and I wouldn't trade it for the world.
TS: Same sentiment. I don’t think for me though that it's any different than what I've always done professionally. As a hairstylist, I always advocated to my clients on the importance of hair care. The very first brand I worked for was Pantene and I always educated consumers on healthy hair care and also partnering with your professional. So for me, what we’re doing with Texpert Collective isn’t really different from what I did in my day-to-day professional life. Texpert Collective is an extension of my work that I do for Mizani so it’s incredibly rewarding. When you're doing what you love it doesn't feel like work.
Q: With the world starting to open back up do you have any plans to have in-person classes or events?
TS: Texpert Collective gave birth to our daughter brand Global Artistry Council. While Texpert Collective educates professional hairstylists digitally through our Facebook Live, Instagram, newsletter, and the upcoming app, Global Artistry Council provides education through in-person events and classes. Global Artistry Council hosted its first event in June 2020 and we had an incredible experience. We raised $18,000 for Black Lives Matter and $18,000 for Color of Change. At our MLK weekend event in January 2021, we had an overwhelming amount of sponsors and giveaways. We also had two incredible initiatives where we had ten $250 scholarships to give away, and we also gave away two spots to attend our next event on MLK weekend in January 2022.
KG: I would also love to add that because we know that so many companies are starting to try to get more into that texture space, all of our events and education are not brand specific. So that means that across the board, all of the different artists that get highlighted and that present can use the brand that they work for as an ambassador, or use things that they have used as a professional and stand by. So I think that that opens things up as well and this next event coming up is going to be bigger. Things are opening back up as you said. It's going to be both in the digital space and in person.
TS: Also our event challenges these brands to make sure that they have more than one person on their team that does texture. Up until this point, texture was a category. And so brands were like “We’ve got one person to fill that spot. Great.” Whereas now, we want the gamut. Sometimes you don’t want to see the same face over and over. Who else is leading your team? Who else is dope over there, doing dope things? So it almost challenges the brands to expand their team members.
Q: What can hairstylists expect from Texpert collective in both the near future and further down the line?
KG: In the near future, the app coming out. Also, tool launches throughout the year. And just evolving the education and going into spaces like Instagram and highlighting artists where maybe that artist hasn’t had a spotlight on them before and growing the community that way.
TS: Exactly. Growing the educational portals, continuing to launch the app, and then continuing to evolve the app. The tools for sure. There's just a lot of things that are not out there, that should be out there. We want to make sure it's needed, it's relevant, and we’re not just putting something out there just to be putting something out there. It would be things that we use, or things we wish we had, or things that we’ve even had to Jimmy to make. I can give this super exclusive sneak peek. About 5 or 6 years ago I stapled, duck-taped and Velcro-ed bags together to create a comprehensive stylist kit for travel. I sent off my makeshift mock version to a luggage developer and they sent me back an incredible sample. They needed me to commit to ten thousand pieces, and I didn't know if that was going to work. I did end up finding a company that could do 5,000 pieces so I sent my bag off overseas. I never saw my bag again and I never heard from the company again. It wasn't until recently that Kuailani was like “Hey, you should truly, highly consider recreating that bag.”. So I found this company that can do a very doable quantity for an initial run and they are actively working on a prototype. I am over the moon about this bag because as a traveling hairstylist you know how it is getting to a location and opening up my suitcase and my products are busted and nothing is in the case that I put it in. It is super exciting, down the line for sure, but fits in with the idea of expanding tools for texperts.
Q: Any final thoughts?
KG: I tell this to my family whenever they ask why I’m working so much on the computer and doing all these meetings. First of all, I found something that I love to do. I have business partners that are of the same mind and who are continuously pushing and have been in the space. Not only do we get to share and brainstorm with each other to push ourselves to accomplish goals and dreams, but we're helping to push the industry forward in hoping to diversify the space. So there’s nothing else I’d rather be doing.
TS: And normalize diversity so it's no longer called diversity.
KG: Exactly, I love that. Just normalizing the space so it’s not different. It's just hair. Hair is hair.
TS: Hair is hair. That is our motto!
K: Hair is hair! You should know how to do all of it.
Follow on Instagram at @TippiShorter, @KauiGoodwyn and @TheTexpertCollective.