Community Highlights: Meet Cheyenne Matter

Today we’d like to introduce you to Cheyenne Matter.

Hi Cheyenne, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I have always been fascinated with shopping and cutting hair, as most of us are as kids. I was never one to cut my own hair, but I did cut everyone else’s hair around me in daycare, and retail therapy is so real. After high school, I headed to college because I never really thought my career in cosmetology would be enough to provide for a family one day so I started my bachelor’s in Business Management.

Right before completing my last year of college I was still convinced the world of beauty was my calling. So I enrolled in Cosmetology school in Lees Summit at Z Hair Academy, changed all of my college courses to virtual, and graduated from both in 2016. As soon as I was almost completely finished with my cosmetology hours, I started to seek out employment.

I fell in love with a salon on the Kansas side so I had to immediately start my reciprocity paperwork to be a dual license stylist. I had a job waiting for me at graduation, started the apprenticeship program, and spent about a year working around the top stylists in color and hair extensions.

When Covid-19 hit, I had just had my first baby and my best friend started convincing my husband and me to work closer to home in small-town Archie where I was commuting from. It didn’t take much convincing once everything was shut down. The Salon opened in September of 2020, and I have since opened The Boutique Spring of 2022!

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Honestly, the road has been pretty smooth for the most part. The biggest hurdle we had was before deciding to open The Salon I started working with a salon that had been in Archie for quite some time.

It was extremely difficult going from a strict, clean, team-driven environment to every man for himself. The owner of the shop wanted us to take the towels home at the end of the night to wash and dry them instead of investing in a set for the shop.

There was no teamwork, and sometimes the girls had such bad RBF that clients were uncomfortable. Mention leaving and you were blasted on social media about it. It was an extremely toxic situation. Since opening The Salon there have been some hiccups along the way but nothing major or serious enough to lose sleep over.

Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I started out by using @BeautyAndTheBlade on my social media platforms because shortly after working in the hair world I knew I wanted to dive deeper into the Permanent Makeup world. I took yet another apprenticeship program to get my Missouri Tattoo license and learn to properly give people the makeup they wanted to wake up in.

Beauty and the Blade covered both areas of my passion for the world of beauty and touches a little on what I love to do without being overly complicated. Since joining the world of Permanent Cosmetics and Cosmetology I have come to specialize in a few different areas.

My most popular services are definitely hand-tied weft hair extensions, color, permanent eyeliner, and brows. What I find most irritating in my field is that you don’t actually have to be licensed to microblade someone’s brows, so most of my clientele has done their homework, and are looking for someone licensed to tattoo brows on.

One of the biggest struggles in this industry is setting prices. I went from a salon in Overland Park to small-town Archie and knew my clients down here wouldn’t pay the Johnson County prices. Granted I couldn’t set those prices, clients wouldn’t blink an eye when quoted.

Bringing all of my training and specialized work down to a small town has really opened up my eyes to setting prices that show your worth. I started out lower than I should have because nobody charged more than $17 for a haircut when I was charging $47 in the city. I have $57,000+ in training and licensing and I really needed to reflect that in my pricing.

Learning and specializing in different brands or services are what I like to do to choose what is best for my client. Whether it is brand and product knowledge, or what color to use on them for permanent makeup, I am constantly learning and studying the industry around me to evolve with our ever-changing world.

What sort of changes are you expecting over the next 5-10 years?
The world of beauty is an incredibly hard industry.

The young girls are learning some awesome makeup and hairstyling trends, the fact that you don’t have to be licensed to microblade or apply lash extensions is irritating to those of us that have paid hundreds of dollars to specialize in brands that aren’t going to cause a rash, and learning proper isolation techniques.

The permanent tattoo and cosmetic industry are pushing to regulate the microblading artists that aren’t certified to permanently implant pigment into someone’s skin. I don’t see a huge shift in the industry, and of course, trends are constantly changing.

The Boutique will have to keep up with the fashion trends while The Salon is keeping up with cuts and colors shifting. But that is inevitable for our industry.

Pricing:

• Microblading $350+
• Full Highlight $120+
• Permanent Eyeliner $400+
• Hair Extensions (consult required) 600+
• BB Glow Facial $250

Contact Info:

• Email: Cheyennemeins@gmail.com
• Website: https://www.facebook.com/Beauty.and.the.Blade.CM/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beauty.and.the.blade/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Beauty.and.the.Blade.CM/
• Other: https://www.facebook.com/TheSalonAndTheBoutique