Hype Hair Honors: Gabrielle “Onyx” Bates

By: Wet “Nation Cutie” CatesEvery stylist has a starting. For some, it’s braiding cousins on the porch or experimenting within the kitchen with a scorching comb. For Gabrielle “Onyx” Bates, the spark began with one thing many ladies of coloration bear in mind from childhood, a Kenya Doll and a complete lot of curiosity.

“My grandma used to purchase me these Barbie heads,” Onyx says with fun. “I’d mess them up with curlers and the whole lot I wasn’t supposed to make use of. However I cherished it.”

What started as childhood play shortly revealed itself as function. By the age of twelve, Onyx was already experimenting with actual strategies, utilizing her allowance to purchase packs of hair from the wonder provide retailer. Sooner or later she tried her first fast weave on herself. The outcomes stunned even her.

“I did it so good folks thought it was my actual hair,” she recollects. “That’s once I was like… okay, I would really be good at this.”

Initially from South Florida, Onyx ultimately took her expertise to Atlanta, a metropolis identified for its aggressive and extremely revered magnificence scene. It didn’t take lengthy for her work to show heads. Positioned within the entrance window of the salon the place she labored, she discovered herself drawing consideration from folks strolling by who stopped simply to observe her model.

“Folks would are available and inform me I impressed them,” she says. “That’s once I knew Atlanta was going to be completely different for me.”

Her background in Miami gave her an edge. The way in which she layered, curled, and styled hair carried a particular aptitude that shortly set her aside in a metropolis full of expertise.

However success didn’t come with out its challenges. Early in her Atlanta profession, a salon scenario didn’t align with the respect and surroundings she believed professionals deserved. As a substitute of shrinking in that second, Onyx turned the expertise into motivation. Inside six months of shifting to town, she opened her personal salon, Self-importance Entice of Atlanta in Buckhead.

“That scenario pushed me to maneuver quick,” she explains. “Every part aligned so shortly. I discovered the area and constructed one thing that was mine.”

Proudly owning her personal salon allowed her to create a tradition rooted in management and dignity. She had seen firsthand how stylists may very well be undervalued, and he or she was decided to do issues in another way.

“I noticed how different folks ran their companies, and a few of it simply didn’t sit proper with me,” she says. “Once I opened my very own salon, I might lastly say, ‘We’re not doing that right here.’”

That philosophy carried into each side of her work. Purchasers weren’t simply appointments. They had been visitors deserving of care, consolation, and excellence.

Immediately, as Onyx expands her presence in Los Angeles, that mindset continues to form the expertise she provides. Sitting in her chair isn’t nearly getting your hair completed; it’s about getting into an environment of luxurious that feels intentional and welcoming.

“We do luxurious over right here,” she says. “You shouldn’t must go all the best way to Beverly Hills to get that stage of therapy.”

From refreshments and stress-free touches throughout appointments to an surroundings designed to assist shoppers unwind, Onyx focuses on creating moments the place magnificence and well-being meet.

“You by no means know what somebody goes by after they sit in your chair,” she says. “I would like them to go away feeling higher than after they walked in.”

Her ambition didn’t sluggish when she grew to become a mom in 2018. If something, it intensified her drive.“Motherhood slowed me down, but it surely additionally sped me up,” she says.

“You begin desirous about what sort of life you wish to construct on your youngsters.”

Balancing enterprise and motherhood meant working smarter and dreaming larger. It additionally bolstered her perception that ladies don’t have to decide on between household and ambition.

For Onyx, the 2 exist facet by facet.

Her journey has already taken her from South Florida to Atlanta and now Los Angeles, however she sees the subsequent section of the Onyx Empire stretching far past U.S. borders. Cities like Paris, London, and even Tokyo are already on her radar.

As a result of for Onyx, success isn’t nearly location, it’s about impression.“There’s no one like me,” she says confidently. “And also you’re speculated to really feel that manner about your self.”

And the Honor Goes To…

In celebration of Ladies’s Historical past Month, Hype Hair proudly honors Gabrielle “Onyx” Bates as one of many trade’s standout stylists. A visionary redefining luxurious, management, and excellence behind the chair.

From styling dolls as a younger woman to constructing a magnificence empire that stretches from South Florida to Atlanta and now Los Angeles, Onyx continues to boost the usual for what it means to guide within the magnificence trade.

Now it’s time to indicate her some love.

Join with Gabrielle “Onyx” Bates, discover her work, and expertise the luxurious she brings to each shopper:

Instagram: @okay.onyx1
TikTok: @okay.onyx
Location: Los Angeles, CA

Comply with her journey, assist her work, and have a good time a stylist who continues to encourage the subsequent era of magnificence professionals.

As a result of when expertise, imaginative and prescient, and confidence meet behind the chair, the outcomes converse for themselves.

The Highlight Continues

At Hype Hair, honoring stylists like Gabrielle “Onyx” Bates is about greater than recognition.  It’s about celebrating the ladies shaping the way forward for magnificence.

Ladies who construct companies.
Ladies who uplift their communities.
Ladies who rework creativity into legacy.

This Ladies’s Historical past Month, we proudly highlight Onyx for her innovation, management, and dedication to excellence behind the chair.

However the highlight doesn’t cease right here.

Throughout the nation and world wide. Proficient stylists are constructing their very own empires, one shopper at a time.

So we wish to know:

Who ought to Hype Hair honor subsequent?

As a result of the subsequent magnificence icon could already be on the market and when she is, Hype Hair will probably be able to have a good time her.