[00:00:12] Speaker A: Hello, I'm Rick Marshall of the Daily Gazette, and this is the Marshall Arts podcast in which I talk to artists around New York's capital region about their work, their inspiration, and the experiences that connect us all, regardless of where we call home.
In the last episode, I spoke to award winning Saratoga based photographer Erica Miller.
In this episode, I sit down with hairstylist Jordan Yanatas, owner of Pinup Jordan's Mermaid Lounge and the creative collective artist studios in Schenectady. An award winning stylist, educator, and influencer, Jordan has become one of the industry's leading experts on the sort of vivid, eye catching hair colors that have become so popular in recent years. With Jordan planning to bring a new, ambitious artistic event to Schenectady later this year, I was thrilled to chat with her about her work and the bright future she envisions for the local art community.
[00:01:15] Speaker B: Jordan, I had never even heard of mermaid hair before I connected with you a while back, and in recent years, you've basically become an ambassador for these bright, colorful hairstyles. We're seeing a lot more of these days for anyone who might not be familiar with the type of hair and coloring and artistry you specialize in. Can you talk a bit about the area of cosmetology you focus on with your artwork and your art?
[00:01:38] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. So I went to cosmetology school over at Palmitill, the school of Schenectady, probably 14 years ago now. It was, and when I was in beauty school, I got really passionate about coloring hair with the colors that were a little bit brighter. Not a lot of professional lines had vivid color lines at that time, they were only really natural colors. But Paul Mitchell did have vivids at the time, and so I got a chance to really dip my toes professionally into it. But I did play with it a little bit. Of course, as a high schooler before, you know, I jumped into it professionally. And so mermaid hair kind of was a passion of mine as a kid. It was a passion of mine in beauty school.
You know, I've been told for many years there's no way I could make a career out of it, but I've done it for almost 15 years. And I think we just attract a really unique kind of client with this type of work, and we're very unique stylists that offer it. So I'm just really passionate about that. And, yeah, the vivid hair thing, it started off with mermaid hair. I had a client, one client came to me and said, I always wanted to look like a mermaid. I want kind of crazy colors in my hair. Can you do that? And I was like, yeah, I'll figure that out. And so I shopped around and had to scour the Internet. At the time, we couldn't even really get the colors I wanted locally. And so I did our hair, and I couldn't believe that it took all day because I wasn't used to doing that kind of work yet. Now I know that's how long it takes. So I posted on the Internet. I said, this is mermaid hair. And then I didn't realize at the time no one was calling it mermaid hair yet. This was just something my client had said, I want mermaid hair. What do you think that looks like? And so it was red and purple and blue and green, and I said, okay, here's my mermaid hair. And I posted it. But this was, to my knowledge, the very first time anyone has ever called mermaid hair mermaid hair. So I will say until the dying day that we started that in Schenectady in my salon. And now when you search mermaid hair, that's just a universal terminal for vivid hair color. Almost like xerox is for a copy.
[00:03:36] Speaker B: Machine, you know, mermaid hair trademark you.
[00:03:38] Speaker C: Well, and that's the thing, is, I actually looked into it, and I could trademark it because I've been using it on social media, you know, recorded with my photos for the longest time.
Obviously, I'm not the first one to do vivid hair color, but I'm the first one to call vivid hair color mermaid hair. And I will say that until the day that I die, I will say that from the high heavens. I know it's a bold statement, but I know where it came from, and I know who started it, and it was us. So once I started posting it online, it became this thing where local people were like, oh, I want this mermaid hair. How do I get mermaid hair? And we started doing these Ariel red solid colors, and then it got a little bit more creative over the years. And now, again, you can search mermaid hair in pinup Jordans is most likely going to be one of the first Google searches to come up.
[00:04:22] Speaker B: I can say that it has definitely gone mainstream because as I mentioned to you earlier, my mom came home with this bright green hair at one point, and I was like, oh, this is officially mainstream. And learning more about the different sorts of color and styling work you do. While preparing for our chat here, I was amazed by everything that goes into giving someone these colors and these style combinations. There's all the usual hair treatments and styling elements, and there's this extra layer of artistry that goes into getting the colors just right and getting them to set and blend the way you want them to. What's a typical process, like, if someone wants to dive into this vivid color combination world?
[00:05:02] Speaker C: That's a great question. So I think it really depends. The process really depends on what they are starting off with. If someone is coming in with completely what we call virgin hair, that would be hair that's never been colored or chemically processed in any way, it makes it a lot easier for us to lighten them. If you have a lot of layers of box color or permanent hair color, or even just dark hair color, it can be very difficult to lift that artificial color out light enough to get it light to make the vivids accept into the hair, essentially. So that can be one big challenge. If someone comes in with really easy canvas, we can do it pretty quickly. Well, in relation to vivids, it might be a five hour process instead of a nine hour process. But to give you an idea, sometimes those previous layers of hair color or the hair history can really contribute to that. So typically, we have to bleach the hair out first.
Vivid hair color is a lot like acrylic paint. So if you want to have light blue hair, you have to get the hair lightened to white. If there's any residual yellow left. When you put the light blue on top of yellow, that makes green. So you really have to consider your underlying canvas with this, which is why I really love the science behind it and the formulation and the color wheel. It is so much more complicated than I ever imagined, and I love that.
[00:06:20] Speaker B: Well, I was looking at your videos of it, and it is amazing because you have the different paint colors out on just like a paint wheel, like an artist would use when you're doing a landscape painting or anything like that, it was kind of amazing to see, and I never made that connection between this style of coloring and the actual, like, painting with a paintbrush.
[00:06:40] Speaker C: Yeah. I always wanted to be an artist when I was a little girl, but I had heard the term starving artist for so many years that I already grew up from a small business family, and I didn't want to be starving. So I, you know, I was like, I'm going to college. And I did. But I also found myself gearing back towards the arts because that's where my heart is, and that's where I love to be.
[00:07:03] Speaker B: You also work as an educator in these areas, and you have quite a long list of awards as both an artist and an educator. What is the community, like in this particular art scene, because I feel like this is, I don't want to say niche, because it is getting mainstream, but it is unique and it is a smaller sort of community of art. How is it changing? How is it evolving? What's the community like?
[00:07:26] Speaker C: The community of hair professionals is so interesting. We have our hair celebrities in our culture, just like every industry has their hair celebrities. So that's pretty exciting.
We call them platform artists, and they're usually educators that teach on stages at these hair shows across the country, which is one of the roles that I take sometimes for certain brands. And then there are people that are more like social media educators or social media personalities with hair. So the culture is pretty supportive, I think. Again, hairstylists are very unique, and we find that we connect a lot with one another, and social media is an amazing way that we're able to really do that.
[00:08:04] Speaker B: That's fantastic. It seems like a very supportive environment. I feel like establishing yourself in this area of hair styling is impressive enough as an accomplishment. But you didn't stop there. Tell me a bit about the creative collective, because this is another one of these big things that you're involved in. And I thinking about it, I don't know how you juggle all these things, but you do.
[00:08:27] Speaker C: Yeah. So I try to lead with my heart always. I don't do anything that makes me unhappy. I will constantly reassess my job, and I will move myself in the direction of my joy. So if that means that I'm really missing the connections with clients, I will do more hair. If it means that I'm getting a little burnt out from the emotional heaviness of having to work on clients, then maybe I'll do more social media work. Or what I noticed when I was traveling was that in other areas of the country, they had these salon studios, which I'd never seen before. So with the creative collective, I had thought to myself, well, I would love to bring salon studios here. Essentially, a studio is a mini salon in a room about the size of this room. I know they can't see it, but, I don't know, twelve by twelve or.
[00:09:10] Speaker B: So, something like that.
[00:09:11] Speaker C: Something like that. So the rooms are individual mini salons. So they are able to paint the rooms, what color they want, they can play what music they want, they can make their own hours. They have a key to the front door, and they have a lock on their door, so no one can enter their studio without them knowing or, you know, without being unlocked. They can make their own hours. They can set their own prices, they can communicate with their own clients. And the other thing that I didn't want to limit it to is just hair, because I knew that there were other resources outside of the beauty industry that I wanted to bring in, such as, like, a photographer. So the creative collective studios was a way for me to bring the Mermaid lounge into a studio space, offer studios that were sort of unprecedented in this area.
When I first started talking about it, no one had any idea what I was talking about, but I'd seen them successful in so many other states, we just didn't have them here. So I was like, well, I must do that then. And they've been very successful. We've actually expanded ourselves out into them a little bit with the mermaid lounge side of things. We've had.
We've had people come and go, which is, to me, actually a really great mark of success, because when they are too busy to stay in that little room, then they get their lease somewhere else larger where they don't need us anymore on the day to day. But we get to have this larger community of artists that now are creating this network of people where, hey, I need a photographer. No problem. Let me call Heather. So that's kind of where that came from. Was evolving the mermaid lounge into a suite situation, offering studios to other artists in the area, not limiting it to just hairdouse, and then again, kind of redefining it as we go and seeing how it continues to grow.
[00:10:50] Speaker B: Well, it's located in downtown Schenectady, correct?
[00:10:53] Speaker C: Yeah, it is. We're kind of a hidden gem. You have to be buzzed in. Our sign is very subtle because we're in a historic building. We're actually in the original Schenectady train station, the railway building there. So it's old, it's beautiful, and it's very secure, and we love that, and we love the location, and we just are very grateful to be there. I always dreamed of being in downtown Schenectady as a business owner. I'm a local Schenectadian, born and raised here. So, you know, I always walk down J Street as a teenager, sipping my coffee, and dreaming of living in an apartment up there, which I did in my twenties. And now I get to, well, now I get to have my business down there. I dreamed of that for a long time. So we've been there for about five and a half years now.
[00:11:45] Speaker A: Hi, it's Rick again. I just want to make sure you know about the Daily Gazette's other podcast, parting shots. Sports editor Ken Schott highlights the latest and greatest news from the sports world, interviewing coaches, players and broadcasters from around the industry. Like the martial arts podcast, you can find all the episodes of parting
[email protected] and wherever you get your podcasts.
[00:12:06] Speaker B: And if you'd like to stay up.
[00:12:07] Speaker A: To date with the latest headlines from the Daily Gazette family of newspapers and receive links to the day's biggest stories directly in your email, make sure to subscribe to the Gazette's newsletters. You can find the signup
[email protected] newsletter now back to the Martial arts podcast.
[00:12:31] Speaker B: I love the idea of bringing all of these different artists together under one roof. Has it resulted in any sort of interesting collaborations, any sort of interesting projects that have come out of bringing all of these different mediums and people working in them together?
[00:12:45] Speaker C: Absolutely. Yeah, I think, well, first of all, we've gotten to create, again, this larger network of hairstylists that are creating this community over competition thing. I think back in the day, hairstylists had a little bit different of a reputation as we're trying to create now. We are girls girls. We are supportive of one another. We are kind of also not girls girls, because breaking the gender binary, I think, in the salon world as well. And so I just think that the whole community is just changing things overall.
And the way we've been able to make these collaborations has grown all of us. So like I said, we've had this photographer. We've been able to do great projects with her. We've linked her up with non for profits that we've been working with. And then she's used makeup artists that we've brought in from years and years ago. And now one of our renters does the makeup for her boudoir shoots. And so it's constantly creating these connections all the time. One of the renters, the photographer I keep talking about, Heather, she and I ended up creating a social media marketing company because I knew the marketing side of things, and she had the photography skills for more high quality images. And so we ended up creating a marketing company with another friend of ours, Leah. So it's definitely just continued to roll and roll and support everybody's growth.
[00:14:05] Speaker B: How you keep all of this straight is a mystery to me, but it is a wonderful mystery. As if all of that wasn't enough, you also have the rainbow convention coming up in November. Please tell me about it, because there's so many things going on with it in doing my research that I feel like any description I provide of it is going to be lacking.
[00:14:23] Speaker C: I know. I don't know where to begin. I feel like I'm gonna talk too much about it. Okay. Well, to put it simply, it is a two day educational event with an awards show at the end of day one that kind of focuses on the specialty of vivid hair color. So, really, the alternative hair that you see in the hair industry, there are a lot of different hair competitions. Again, we have our own whole culture of hairstylists. And so there's different hair awards that exist in our world. And some of them are very avant garde. Some of them are very high production value. Some of them are very expensive to enter.
And there's politics involved in a lot of these things. Large brands will pay these awards companies to sponsor them. And ultimately, you know, you scratch my back, I scratch yours. And the politics of that has started to taint the awards show industry from the hair standpoint, where there's people who are not getting nominated because of politics, people who are getting nominated because of politics. And it's kind of driving this wedge. I also think that there were people that were looking for representation of a hair show by a hairstylist. The people that are running these hair shows are kind of corporate stiffs, white guys in suits, and they're not licensed hairstylists. They haven't walked a show floor. They haven't had to have their flight delayed. They haven't had to sweat behind the chair for 12 hours the day before the hair show. So I really wanted to do something that was more representative of hairstylists as a whole. Salon owners, people that were a little bit different, because there are hair shows, but they don't really represent the alternative crowd. And I think vivid hair is so complicated and so difficult that even sometimes a solid purple, people have no idea how complex it is to achieve that. And so one of my frustrations with other awards shows was that there was not transparency in the judging, who the judges were, what we were being judged on.
And I've received so many nominations. I'm very grateful for those things. But when I tried to give criticism back to these companies and say, hey, I think you should maybe change how you're doing, they were kind of falling on deaf ears. So I was really starting to feel called to this position myself, where I have a lot of experience, I have a lot of connections and amazing friends, and someone's got to be the first one to do it. So I guess maybe it might have to be me.
[00:16:48] Speaker B: And I'm sensing a trend here.
[00:16:50] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But I also think they're great business ideas. You know, definitely it's one of those things where it works out serendipitously, but I'm always in it to make money and level up, too, because I am a business person, but I'm in it for the good feels. And everything has gone so organically so far with the convention and with the awards show that it feels very right. And I haven't hit any major walls and any hurdles that I can't leap over so far. So it's really exciting to see all these people coming to Schenectady, to be honest.
[00:17:24] Speaker B: I did notice one thing when I was looking up information about the rainbow convention, and it jumped out at me. I love that there are things other than the vivid hairstyle in there. You've got braiding. You've got these different sort of takes on hair that maybe are less represented, I guess, in the greater sort of mainstream hairstyling world.
[00:17:43] Speaker C: So I think one of the things that I noticed was that vivid hair coloring is starting to change a little. We're doing a lot less of the full head vivids because of maintenance right now, and I think people's financial situations. So I'm trying to help people control the trends a little. Right. Help stylists control the trends, essentially by offering their clients more options, by saying, hey, we don't have to bleach out your entire head and take 9 hours to do your hair, but we can bring in braids and bring in, which, by the way, our braider is now in Denver, who's coming in to educate. She started here in Schenectady. She's a boces graduate. She's now got a tremendous following on TikTok, and she was one of the first people that was like, yes, I will absolutely come educate at this event before anyone knew what it was. So what's really exciting is not just the diversity of the education that we're offering, but also honoring some of our, like, smaller hometown folks that have made it kind of big and bringing them back home and also grabbing some of these just huge influencers from all over the country. And some people from outside of the country are coming specifically for this show. And that's, like, blowing my mind. I love that.
[00:18:52] Speaker B: Another thing that I thought was really, really amazing when I was looking through this was the decision to degender a lot of the awards and the events.
[00:19:01] Speaker C: So at the forefront of the pinup, Jordan's mermaid lounge mission as a salon was always, that beauty belongs to everyone. I think that we're breaking these stereotypes a lot. And there isn't this black and white, male and female anymore. You are what you feel, and we want to help you look that way and feel that way. And in other awards shows, they had added a men's color category, and I was like, why would you add a men's color category? In New York state, we are not legally allowed to gender hair services, which means I cannot offer you a men's cut. I can offer you a clipper cut, but I'm not legally allowed to put men's cut on my menu. Technically speaking, my service menu.
[00:19:42] Speaker A: I did not know that.
[00:19:43] Speaker C: Yeah, it's actually not allowed. So we are one of the more liberal states, for sure. But I noticed through, again, through my travels that we're actually pretty privileged to live in an area where we are so liberal and where it's a little more accepted to have a little bit of gray area in between that black and white. And so when I noticed that there was this thing happening with the awards where they were doing a men's color category, my discomfort was with the fact that my salon has a large transgender and non binary client base. And what is a men's color? If I post a picture of a trans client and I win, and someone starts to challenge that win and says, well, that's not a born man, well, then I put my client in a really awful, awkward position. It starts this whole political conversation of, like, almost, like, the sports in high school where, like, you know, they. They argue about the gender in sports in high school. It just gave me an icky feeling. So, again, I'm not one to just sit there and stew about it. So I went right to the top. I went right to the owner of the company. I said, excuse me, I don't like this. And I got ignored. I got hit with, like, an auto response. Been working for this company for, like, eight years. And so I just was like, you know what? Again, this is all I need to know. I just. I think that in a lot of ways, especially, like, politics, we're seeing that we're looking for some younger candidates. Right? This is me throwing my hat in to be the younger candidate in leadership in the beauty industry as the rainbow convention and as a hair show. You know, this year, yes, it's all about vivids, because I think we needed to cultivate a community that was like minded and a culture that was understood. But I think moving forward, I would love to make it absolutely tremendous and have all sorts of color involved and cutting and texture and styling and all of it.
[00:21:30] Speaker B: Well, I hesitate to even ask this question, but beyond all the things we've talked about here, what else is going on and where can people find more information about what you're working on?
[00:21:40] Speaker C: Oh, wow. I mean, like I said, I always have a million projects going on. I think Instagram is probably my meat and potatoes in terms of keeping people up to date. I usually stay most relevant on Instagram. Instagram Stories I'm always hopping on. And then of course, we have pinupjordan.com, comma, the salon website. If anyone wants to make an appointment, we have an awesome virtual consultation form on there. They will ask some questions and you can show us your hair. So that way we know what we're getting into a little bit. And then we have the rainbow convention, Instagram as well as the rainbowconvention.com and yeah, just working on stuff with my marketing company, mainly for the convention right now. But I don't know what's next. We'll see. I guess I really would like to see where the convention goes in the future. I think that's probably my next big focus professionally.
[00:22:26] Speaker B: Well, Jordan, thank you so much for chatting with me here. This has been enlightening. Who knows? Maybe when I get to the point where I need a splash of color in my, in my hair, maybe we'll be talking more.
[00:22:39] Speaker C: I like it. I'm down. I'm ready.
[00:22:41] Speaker B: Thanks so much, Jordan.
[00:22:41] Speaker C: Thank you. I appreciate it.
[00:22:54] Speaker A: This has been the Marshall Arts podcast with guest Jordan Yoannis. You can find more information about Jordan and her work
[email protected] and see photos and video of some of the styles and projects we've discussed here on her Pinup Jordan account on Instagram.
Thanks for listening to this episode of Martial Arts. If you like what you've heard and want to hear more, make sure to subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts. And for more coverage of the region's arts and entertainment scene, head to DailyGazette.com and nippertown.
This episode was produced by me, Rick Marshall for the Daily Gazette. If there's a local art story or artist you'd like to hear more about on this podcast, you can contact me at that r.
[email protected] or via social media.
