Arlene Rivera — Owner and founder of “Maxine’s Shears and Wigs, Salon and Barbershop recounts her curly hair challenges and controversial philosophy on styling and maintaining curls and wavy hair.
Yet today, this self-proclaimed “hair doctor” is changing lives one curly head at a time.
If you missed part-1 or part-2 of “The Curls-Preneur” you can read them now.
Photo Credit: Lexi Green — Savage Grey Studios.
As a young girl little Arlene Rivera sat quietly in her mother’s salon. She observed how her mom applied the trade of creating beautiful hair styles on her client’s natural hair. And then creating an identical look on a wig for the client.
By 6-years-old Rivera knew that she wanted to be a hairstylist. Rivera silently watched her mother work until she could not resist the urge to say, “It’s bigger on this side.” “You missed a piece of hair on that side, Mommy.” Little Arlene Rivera was already perfecting her gift as a “hair doctor.”
Heritage: Spanish, Mexican, Native American.
Photo Credit: Lexi Green — Savage Grey Studios.
The shame of curls
I want to empower curly hair people. Because still in the year 2019, I get Caucasian girls with highly curly hair, devastated because they don’t know what to do with their hair. They’re the only ones with curly hair. People make fun of them. I have little girls that go to kindergarten. Girls (that) could be mixed (ethnicity). Girls that are black. And they are still making like curly hair is something weird.
Arlene Rivera — Owner and founder of “Maxine’s Shears and Wigs, Salon and Barbershop.
Heritage: African-American, Welsh, English, Irish, Scottish, African (Congo).
Photo Credit: Lexi Green — Savage Grey Studios.
Her husband — Robert Gomez, Barber and Locktician at Maxine’s said —
Do you know how many adults have cried in her chair because this is the first time that (a stylist) did not mess up their hair?
Robert Gomez — Barber and Locktician at “Maxine’s Shears and Wigs, Salon and Barbershop.
Photo Credit: Lexi Green — Savage Grey Studios.
The curl-preneur. Influenced by Vidal Sassoon
Rivera credits early experiences in the hairstyling industry for her need to take care of people. She vividly recounts a time when she met the famed British American hairstylist. And owner of an empire built on hair products of the same name — Vidal Sassoon. Rivera proudly recalls the day she met Vidal Sassoon — and discovered his famed pivot-point hair cutting technique.
My idea was to cut shape into the hair, to use it like fabric and take away everything that was superfluous.
Vidal Sassoon
She was eight-years-old when Rivera and her sister were filling in as live models for their mother at a hair workshop. At the Vidal Sassoon hairstyling workshop, Sassoon inspected each stylist’s work. As a young hairstyle model, Rivera briefly talked with the hair icon — Vidal Sassoon.
Antoinette Toscano, Amy Watson (R).
Photo Credit: Lexi Green — Savage Grey Studios.
At 26-years-old when she might have been expected to stay at home with her infant daughter Rivera chose a different path. She pursued her passion to become a professional hairstylist. After attending cosmetology school, during the day. And at night to complete the 18-month curriculum in 12-months. Rivera then opened a salon. On the Caribbean island — the commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Spanish for “Rich Port.” Rivera and her sister opened a full-service spa and salon after receiving help from their mother.
The Matrix artistic team
It did not take long before Rivera discovered her stride as a Matrix Artistic Team member. She was producing hair shows and talking to 300 hair artists at a hotel about how to cut hair. As a haircut instructor and a diligent hairstylist in her salon. These were the years that Rivera began to develop her personal philosophy as a professional hairstylist.
But before telling you what makes Rivera so successful at maintaining the health, style, and growth of natural curls and natural waves, it is important to know how she became a “hair doctor”.
Red mountain dreams in Colorado
The Rivera sisters operated a successful spa and salon for 15-years in Puerto Rico until Rivera’s then 12-year-old daughter — Maxine Cofino had a dream.
In her dream she saw red mountains. Rivera encouraged her daughter to seek out the place with the red mountains. After doing some Internet research from her home in Puerto Rico on the new computer her mother had just purchased, the young Cofino found Colorado Springs, Colorado.
As a birthday gift for Maxine Cofino’s Quinceañera — Spanish feminine form of the 15-year-old birthday, Rivera took her daughter on a two-week trip to the red mountains of Colorado. The mountains from her dream.
At the end of the trip young Cofino did not want to leave. She wanted to move to Colorado. To appease her daughter Rivera told her that God would make it snow the next day during their snowmobiling trip in the mountains. Rivera felt relieved by the beautiful blue sky and sunny day. Until it began to snow.
Paths to becoming a curl entrepreneur
Heritage: European Jewish (Russian, Israeli, Polish).
Photo Credit: Lexi Green — Savage Grey Studios.
When the snow shower continued Rivera decided to take yet another path.
One that people would ask if it was the right decision. But undeterred, Rivera put her house up for sale in Puerto Rico and sold it within one week. Leaving behind a successful career and business. Rivera and her daughter Maxine Cofino moved to Colorado Springs, Colorado USA.
She worked at the U.S. Air Force Academy barbershop at first. Then, when her daughter moved to Fort Collins, Colorado for college Rivera fell in love with the city and moved to Fort Collins to teach. As a Master Colorist Rivera had wealth of knowledge to impart to her students.
An inclusive salon experience
The transition from a successful hairstylist and business owner in Puerto Rico to an environment with little diversity. And at times outwardly hostile did not dishearten Rivera. She advocated for the best techniques and products for all of the salon and barbershop clients — regardless of ethnicity. Yet Rivera was met with continued resistance to inclusion, quality products, and services for all hair-types.
This continued frustration in the work environment caused Rivera to have to make yet another difficult decision. As always, she asked herself, “Is it about me? Or is it about her? It has always been about my daughter.”
Antoinette Toscano, Sasha Mintz (R), Amy Watson (CL), Samantha Borrego (CR).
Photo Credit: Lexi Green — Savage Grey Studios.
And once again, she chose the path that everyone else thought was a poor decision. Yet, for the second time, Rivera started her own business in the Western United States. And like her mother before her Rivera named her salon after her daughter, Maxine.
Initially Rivera rented a room with other hairstylists. They resented that she created a unique space for her clients who wore a head-scarf called a hijab. These Muslim women needed a salon experience where they could remove their hair covering in a way that respected their religious practice. Rivera ‘s desire to be inclusive and to serve all of the population where she worked, and not just 80-percent of it, caused a lot of tension within the workplace.
After moving the salon several times Rivera and her husband are now building a salon where she is in complete control of the environment and the client experience. One that is outside of the control of landlords and other tenants.
More than 65 percent have curly hair
An estimated 65 percent of women have curly or wavy hair.
Lorraine Massey — author of “Curly Girl the Handbook.”
Samantha Borrego (R). Heritage: Spanish, Mexican, Native American.
Photo Credit: Lexi Green — Savage Grey Studios.
There are so many factors to keeping curly and wavy hair healthy, long, and beautiful.
Curl-preneur Arlene Rivera — owner and founder of “Maxine’s Shears …” simplifies how best to care for your curly and wavy hair, regardless of ethnicity.
Rivera takes a controversial approach to curly and wavy hair care.
A Controversial approach to cutting curls
“Coming from Caribbean moisture to the dryness of the altitude of the mountains changed my philosophy. Because my hair got extremely dry. And I couldn’t understand what was happening. There is another thing that is very peculiar about the curls that I was able to get in Puerto Rico that I couldn’t get here. That is a good haircut. There is no education about how to cut the curls. You come over here and everybody textures. And they use thinning shears to cut curly hair which creates volume.”
Photo Credit: Lexi Green — Savage Grey Studios.
Rivera goes on to say this about cutting curly hair.
The more you empty your ends the more frizziness and inability your curl has to be full, from the end to your scalp.
Arlene Rivera — Owner and founder of “Maxine’s Shears and Wigs, Salon and Barbershop.
If you love movement in your curls, Rivera warns —
“You won’t be able to have that if your ends are thinned, or texturized, or point-cut. All these techniques that are mainly designed for straight hair. You can have anything that you see in a magazine, but my job as a hairdresser is to understand that I have to accomplish that (hairstyle) by doing blunt cuts.”
“My expertise comes from the basic knowledge of how to run a consultation.”
First, she starts by looking at the client in the mirror through a “cool medium.”
Then, she turns the chair around and looks at her client directly to make the consultation personal.
“When choosing what service is good for the person. I analyze (and) I let you know what type of hair you have. Not what type of curl.
From what type of hair you have and what type of chemicals you have if you have any.
Why hair type not curl type matters more
Then we decide what level of hydration and how thick or thin that hydration is.
The spectrum of ingredients in a product range from a lot of chemicals to organic.
Samantha Borrego, Jesse James Collins (R).
Photo Credit: Lexi Green — Savage Grey Studios.
There is a reality to the amount of chemicals that are fillers and the quality of what is in a bottle. (And) they could damage your hair. So, fillers could be from water, and yes we need water. But after understanding how a good product works I don’t want to open a shampoo bottle and the whole product is so liquified.”
Photo Credit: Lexi Green — Savage Grey Studios.
I want a product that is nutrient dense and has some consistency — Rivera explains.
The truth about Loma® Hair Care products
“And I don’t sell (or push) product(s). … My focus is looking for quality products … that I don’t have to wait three weeks” to see the results. “I buy one brand (of product) and I use it on all of my clients. And not all of my clients have curly hair.”
Some of them have straight hair.
“The product provides me with different levels of moisture.
The moisture content or nutrients is what determines the hair type Rivera will apply it to.”
“I gravitated to something organic. Because even though the best in the industry that wasn’t organic, it was not giving me what my curls needed. When I was in Puerto Rico for 15-years I used to gravitate to products from (the) Dominican Republic that were extremely natural. And one of the products that was missing is aloe vera-based.” In the USA.
Photo Credit: Loma® Hair Care.
So, I looked for organic and aloe vera-based products and I found “Loma® Hair Care.”
“Th