STYLE COUNSEL

Desirae Futel

OCCUPATION: CEO and loctician at Designerae STYLE: Low maintenance and chill

Tell us about Designerae. I started in 2015 as a regular hair stylist at a salon in Clifton. I didn’t have a lot of clients at that time, but I used to get a lot of calls for locs [dreadlocks]. This year, I’m going to be exclusively doing locs. What are the

benefits of being a loctician versus a stylist with a broader list of services?

A lot of the other services I was offering take more time, and I have some services in the loc industry that I didn’t have time for because I was trying to accommodate all these other services. The mission

of Designerae is to promote healing. How can haircare promote healing?

Our hair speaks, and a lot of people don’t realize that. I can look at somebody’s hair and tell you if they have a medical condition, or if they just had a baby, or if they had stress in their lives. I had a woman come to me and say, “I’m so worried. My hair is coming out in patches. I don’t know what to do.” She had big welts and patches on her head, everywhere. Her locs were just falling out. At the time, I had never seen anything like that. I called my mentor here. She’s a trichologist— somebody who specializes in scalp conditions. I showed her a picture. She said, “It’s alopecia areata,” which is where stress causes bald spots. “Something is going on with that young lady.” I asked [the client], and she just broke down in tears. “I can’t find a job. I’m really struggling financially right now.” I was able to style her hair to hide those patches, and we worked together. I’m seeing her every month, and I literally was able to watch her hair grow back. She found a job. She stopped stressing. [She’s] getting back to feeling confident and feeling secure and loving on herself more, being aware that how she feels inside will be reflected outside. —JACLYN YOUHANA GARVER