Beauty in the Eye of the Entrepreneur: The Story of HairVoyage

Since launched HairVoyage in 2018, MaryAlice Turletes has led the organization’s efforts to provide beauty professionals with valuable mentorship and learning opportunities. (Image courtesy of HairVoyage)

For some, an interest in entrepreneurship is something that comes later in life. For MaryAlice Turletes, her passion for starting and building her own business was apparent early.  

“Even when I was in high school, I knew that I wanted to be an entrepreneur,” said Turletes. “I actually knew that I wanted to do hair, even then. I knew that I was interested in business and that I wanted to have a boutique.”

Turletes is the Founder and CEO of HairVoyage, a beauty professional marketplace for paid mentorship. HairVoyage believes in empowering hairdressers and other beauty industry professionals by connecting them with meaningful and valuable opportunities to serve as mentors or mentees, making it easier for these professionals to learn and share their wisdom and expertise with each other.

Although Turletes’ interest in entrepreneurship began while she was still in high school, her interest in beauty and haircare began much earlier.

“When I was a kid, I would go with my mother when she got her hair cut,” said Turletes. “I wanted to watch, I wanted to be at the salon, I wanted to check out all of the products. Any experience that I could tag along for I was all in.”

An interest sparked and nurtured by trips taken with family members to the salon was further enhanced when a new neighbor moved in. This new neighbor from Canada brought with her stories from her time running her own salon, and had a significant influence on MaryAlice and her direction.

“A new neighbor moved from Canada when I was young, and she previously owned and operated her own salon,” said Turletes. “She did not have her green card so she was at home a lot, and she took me under her wing and taught me the basics. My neighbor served as a compass for me and was very open to sharing her knowledge with me. She helped to direct my interest and passion.”

As the years passed by and Turletes’ interest in beauty and design continued to grow, a fateful slip would prove the catalyst in her turning this lifelong interest into a career.

“I actually did not know that hair schools existed, and I didn’t understand the scope of the industry,” said Turletes. “One day I stepped on a postcard under a fresh pile of snow in the parking lot at my high school and I slipped and fell. I picked up the postcard and it was an ad for the Aveda Institute, it was a hair school.”

After recovering from the shock of this fortuitous fall, Turletes headed back home and checked out the Institute’s site. After learning more, and seeing one of her favorite Robert Frost quotes on the website, Turletes’ next step was clear.

“I got the chills,” said Turletes. “This was for me.”

After graduating from high school, Turletes attended hair school in Colorado, before moving to California as she tried to figure out where to establish herself.

“I was trying to figure out where I wanted to live,” said Turletes. “I wasn’t sure if I wanted to live in Alaska. The thing that brought me back was without a doubt, the people.”

After returning to Alaska, MaryAlice had a number of unique experiences which ultimately led her to found HairVoyage. 

“I would go to hair shows and it was so inspiring to see hairdressers from all over the world come together to share their work, but that usually happened only once a year,” said Turletes. “That wasn’t enough and there had to be other ways to bring beauty professionals together.”

Beyond larger trade events, MaryAlice also noticed that salons presented a unique environment for her and her peers to refine their craft. In this setting, she was particularly drawn to hair dressers from out of state, who brought with them unique styles and methods for cutting hair. Yet despite this, there were limited opportunities for beauty professionals to connect beyond their salon.

“People are competitive, and there is not a lot of collaboration in our industry,” said Turletes. “There are some people who are very good at it and make it happen, but as a whole, everyone does their own thing in their salon spaces. When I was trying to get mentored, I needed to use a service to book an appointment. Still, these mentoring opportunities gave me the opportunity to refine my craft and learn, and I wanted to make these more accessible for people.”

When founding HairVoyage, Turletes was inspired by her experience working with mentors to not simply make the experience more accessible, but also create meaningful training interactions and apprenticeships for newcomers to the industry.

“In our trade, there are people who are eager to learn but apprenticeships are not always as useful as one would hope,” said Turletes. “People in the industry started getting burned by apprenticeships because you’re getting paid minimum wage and beyond learning, you’re also there to help the stylist do some of the menial tasks of the salon. The stylists may have good intentions, but the learning piece often falls by the side. I asked myself, how can we improve this?”

Turletes’ solution to this challenge formed the core mission of HairVoyage. Her plan was to create an organization that fairly compensated and supported both mentees and mentors in the beauty industry, pairing them and making sure that wisdom could be passed on without causing unnecessary emotional or financial strain for either party. Since launching HairVoyage in 2018, Turletes and her team have encountered and overcome many hurdles, perhaps best demonstrated through their engagement with Startup Weekend in 2018.

“We actually got passed over,” “The first time during the pitch portion I said the word cosmetology and people thought I was talking about astrology so the concept didn't go anywhere. Someone came up to me later and said ‘tell me more about this astrology thing’”. 

Although this first Startup Weekend did not pan out for Turletes, it was during this event that she met her future business partner Dana Herndon, after the two joined the same project team. The next time Turletes participated in Startup Weekend in Juneau a year later, the result was far different.

“I thought about how to best present my idea and had to fight for it,” said Turletes. “We won, so that was absolutely incredible.”

On its website, HairVoyage defines the term “Hairitarian” as an artist who seeks to promote goodness and connection through the art of hair, and creates opportunities for veteran industry professionals to mentor newcomers. With “Hairatarians” training and supporting artists in the beauty industry, our world becomes that much brighter, inspired, and beautiful.

Because when you look your best and feel your best, you are your best. That’s the vision of HairVoyage.