October 18, 2020
Christina Bowers Owner and Stylist at Sacred Salon Truckee, Ca.
Christina's passion for creating spaces that are "sacred" is mesmerizing to me. I've known Christina for many years, admiring all that she does on social media and in our small town of Truckee, California. About a year ago, when I was trying to figure my life out, I actually was considering working at her salon but I couldn't get myself to commit to living in Truckee again.
I wanted to interview Christina because she is such a stand for eco products and self love and care. Christina believes that self care should be sacred. By example, she shows people that the most important thing to do for yourself is to love yourself and that self care is a practice to help cultivate self love. Christina says she loves everything about that and supporting people to shine from the place of feeling loved and beautiful within which is incredibly powerful.
Christina had wanted to open her space for a long time and when she finally did it was because she was having major reactions to chemicals that were irritating her in the salon she had been working in prior. She also wanted to have a smaller, quieter space where self care was the focus and the atmosphere would be safe and conducive to erasing inadequacy and negative feelings that the beauty industry can often create. She wanted to make a space where her clients would feel happy fully being themselves and know they are beautiful just as they are.
In our interview, Christina mentions her disenchantment with doing photoshoots for magazines and wanting no part of that in the industry. And whooooshhhh! Man, oh man. Just taking that part in gets my blood pumping and gets me excited! I love those moments that have my stomach turn over itself and scream at me that this is not right! Which then leads to big, often amazing changes.
I love the defining moments that feel so terrible at the time and then ultimately turn into a blessing and turning point of our lives.
Listening to Christina talk about magazine culture creating an unattainable look and appearance fourteen years ago (and is still happening time after time) stops me for a minute to think about where I stand in this...
If the people in the magazines don’t look like the people in the magazines, what’s the point of the magazines? What the eff are they even doing here? Sure, “art and design.” Yes! I am here for that. Not being truly yourself and who you are isn't good enough so you must wear all this makeup, all these expressive clothes, have perfect hair? And what are they expressing? Self expression? Maybe it’s an expression of self loathing, pain, and superficiality. Maybe I am just jaded, but that’s what I see.
Now, this is coming from someone that in middle school had magazine pages covering every inch of her room. They were images that were interesting with neat colors, really cool hair and makeup, and wild fashion. I was drawn to the artistic expression and the creative design that was being used. But now when I look back and think about how self conscious I was about how I looked and expressed myself, I can’t help but wonder what absorbing that daily was doing to me -- negatively and, well, positively too.
Christina took a few situations that didn’t feel right to her and made something that works for her, taking a stand for what she believes in. I admire this so much!
Beauty to Christina is uniqueness and self love.
It’s beautiful to be vulnerable and even when it looks like you don’t love yourself, being raw about it is in itself beautiful. Christina talks about how she finds herself telling people how beautiful they are and their response is often how they were just crying or that they don’t seem to feel that way about themselves. She loves the unique and wants people to embrace that within themselves. She loves anything that stands out and people that follow their bliss and heart.
The beauty industry to Christina creates a lot of love and can create a lot of lack of love or it even removes love. She says it’s not just this or that. It’s made up of many people and we all use it in different ways. Like myself, she has gone through years of emotional turmoil of being a part of the beauty industry. I loved how Christina called herself out by saying that she was judging it as a whole, feeling victim to how she perceived it rather than noticing that those individuals were just a piece of it and she could be more empowered and make whatever she wanted out of it. Christina has felt the ups and downs and has often wanted to quit the industry but she always seems to come back to it because the possibilities of it can be truly healing.
I asked Christina what she is learning right now. One of the things that she shared was being mindful. She is practicing this by taking time away from her phone, coming back to self love and practicing what she preaches. She tells people all the time to take care of themselves, love how they are, love who they are, but then she finds herself sacrificing that in herself by being so busy with running a business and having a family. Many, many people in our industry love serving others, being the person that shows up for them when they need it, but then find themselves unable to “make their lunch,” as Christina puts it. I’ve been there. I know that. I think most of us do, especially those who go into doing hair because we want to help people feel and know they are beautiful. It’s so much to hold and to have boundaries with clients so you can continue showing up for them without falling apart. Christina said that she is learning and working on not just saying the words but backing them up with the action of loving herself, being present, while constantly balancing.
There is much more to this interview with Christina than I’ve highlighted here. She holds a great wealth of wisdom, creativity, imagination and inspiration. I loved learning about what she is up to, what she stands for, and how she takes all of the bits of her to create space for others. I loved getting to see bits of myself in her. And I loved imagining my future as she shared her journey to her Sacred Salon space now.
Thank you for making the beauty industry beautiful by showing up.
Love and gratitude,
Jillian
Creator/ Founder of The Beauty Project
Christina's Beauty Statement: "Beauty to me is love.
The beauty industry is a responsibility to make it what we want it to be and help cultivate love in our clients on that platform.
What I would like people to know about the beauty industry is that demand leads to supply. You can consume what is most supportive for self care and love and encourage the industry to be what you want it to be by making mindful choices.
I am beautiful because I love my imperfections. I am beautiful because I love."
Commentaires