A Salon Celebrating CURL POWER

Jiolka Peralta found success by returning to her roots. Her hair’s roots.

The Reading High School and Alvernia University grad straightened her curls for much of her life. But that all changed when her daughter Emilia lost her hair when she was about five months old. Her locks were straight when they fell out; when they grew back in, they were curly.

“That pushed me to want to learn about curly hair and start educating myself,” says Peralta, “and then in the process, I went through my own journey learning about my curls.”

“Times are changing and what’s perceived to be beautiful now is very different than what was perceived to be beautiful when we were growing up,” says Peralta, 33. “There’s a lot more self-awareness and selfacceptance and people wanting to be their authentic self. The pandemic pushed people into the trend of embracing our natural texture.”

At first, the Texture Curl Bar was a one-woman operation, but continued success has allowed Peralta to hire four additional stylists and expand business hours.

“I am blessed to have the staff that I do because they make this a lot easier for me,” she says. “I get pulled in many, many directions, so having a staff that I can count on and rely on makes the process a lot better for me.”

The Dominican Republic native began watching tutorials and engaging in conversations on social media. She then went natural, eventually enrolling at Empire Beauty School to get her license.

That multiyear journey led to the June 2021 opening of the Texture Curl Bar, a West Reading salon specializing in curly and natural hair. It’s the first of its kind in Berks County, according to the Exeter Township resident.

And she couldn’t have picked a better time to launch the venture. The COVID-19 pandemic, which caused everyone to go natural for a few months out of necessity, inspired a return to authenticity.

Only a little over a year after launching the business, Peralta was recognized by her alma mater for her success. In October 2022, Alvernia honored Peralta with a Four Under Forty Achievement Award, which recognizes the achievements of the university’s young alumni.

And she’s just getting started.

“I feel like over the past two years I went through what felt like a decade of growth in here,” she says. “I started with just me and one chair and now I have six chairs in here, four stylists. We’re dabbling in skin care now. We’re going to have an aesthetician. What I’m trying to do now is keep it all together and manage it all, because some days it can become overwhelming. Good overwhelming.”

723 Penn Avenue West Reading texturecurlbar.com