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Breanna Rosa - Re By Bre

By Terry L. Watson

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Photos Provided by Breanna Rosa

Breanna Rosa is Re by Bre. This young and talented professional hairstylist realized her gift almost by happenstance.

As she prefers to be acknowledged, Bre is a native of Pensacola, FL. After receiving her formal education in the Pensacola public school system, she made her way to Tallahassee, FL, and attended Florida A&M University, a Historically Black College and University. Next, Breanna returned to Pensacola, attended Pensacola State University, and obtained her Associate of Arts degree in 2015.

Hard work has always been a part of Bre’s identity. Since the age of 15, she has always worked, often working two jobs simultaneously. Currently, Bre works as a professional loctician and is the owner of Re By Bre.

Some of the services Bre offers at her salon, Locology Loc Studio and Beauty Bar located in Pensacola are Starter Locs, Retwists, Styles, Loc Repair, Loc Extensions, and Wicks. She also has developed a line of natural hair products designed to assist her clients in managing and maintaining their locs. Her husband and business partner is the one who manages the Wicks component of her business. The average cost for Bre’s services is $100.

She started her business in 2016, and shares that she could only do retwists and didn’t know how to start locs. She promoted her services on social media, encouraging those who needed to get their locs retwisted to get them done with her. One of her friends coined the term “Re By Bre,” and she stuck with it. “I could never do hair before I started doing locs. It began while I was involved in a bad relationship. The person I was dating was unfaithful, and I didn’t trust him to get his hair styled by someone else, so I taught myself how to do it. It was a tough experience, and it took me a long time to finish the task. So, I reached out to someone locally who was well known in the loc community. Their feedback wasn’t promising, and instead of allowing that to discourage me, I became more determined to master my craft,” she says.

Bre shares that styling locs is an art form. This is one of the things that she loves most about her profession. “I love creating new styles and new looks for my clients. When a person has locs, they can become outgrown over time. I am able to tame and revitalize their locs by retwisting them and creating or recreating a nice, elegant style.

Professionally, Bre says she is inspired by Mani Locs of Atlanta, GA. “I reached out to him and asked him to teach me new styles and different techniques,” she shares. He was open to helping Bre, and she eventually traveled to Atlanta and shadowed him, acquiring valuable information that helped her business grow to new heights.

Bre credits the love and support of her husband, Shawn, for pushing her to be the best version of herself. “When he came into my life, he absorbed many things that were weighing me down. He allowed me to step out of the workforce and put my focus on being a business owner,” she says. She became a full-time entrepreneur in 2019, and within six months, she became an overnight success on social media. After posting her work on Facebook, she went viral on three different occasions, all in one week. That success opened new doors for Bre. She began to receive invitations to participate in events all around the United States and different countries. She then organized a tour schedule and visited areas such as Miami, FL, Birmingham and Montgomery, AL, Atlanta, GA, Colorado, North Carolina, Chicago, Virginia, and Texas. As a result, a new business segment was realized for Bre. She now works as a traveling loctician, and she has clients in Chicago and Atlanta that she services every month.

Bre says her mother, Marie and sister, LeShaunte have also impacted her life and career. “They are my biggest supporters. I started both of their locs, and they are actually walking billboards for my work,” she says.

While the ride has been enjoyable for Bre, she shares there is one thing that she wishes had happened differently. “I wish I had a mentor in the beginning. I am self-taught, and everything that I know I learned on my own. If I had known earlier what I learned in 2020, I believe I would have gotten further in my craft,” she says.

Moving forward, Bre says she hopes to relocate to a bigger city, such as Atlanta, and open a salon there. Her advice for those who may follow in her footsteps is to use every brick thrown at you to step on and grow higher. “If you don’t love what you do, find out what you do love,” she says.

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