There’s something so fun about a career story that starts well, by accident, and leads to great success. Before Garcia stumbled his way into the world of hair, he was the drummer in a “band that sounded like The Strokes,” he says, remembering his look at the time: “I wore a Canadian tuxedo with long, curly locks down to my belly button.” Needless to say, Garcia wasn’t planning a career in salons.
Before leaving on a month-long tour in a minivan, however, his friend, a manager at a salon in the Bay Area, asked if he’d be interested in a receptionist position. “You know what, ask me when I get back?” Garcia said.
After the tour, he quickly met up with his friend where they discussed the job over lunch and ended up going to the salon with his friend who had some work to do. At the salon, a lady struck up a conversation with Garcia. They talked about “fashion, being outdoors, anything creative—anything but hair,” he recalls.
Eventually, “my friend came back around an hour later and introduced the lady as the owner of the salon, who then looked at me and said ‘So, do you want the job or not?’” And that was the start of Garcia’s accidental career in hair.
Six months in, Garcia had a review with the salon owner. “You’re good at this job, but this job isn’t for you,” she said, “It made my heart sink—my mind started racing,” Garcia recalls. But then: she pulled out a textbook, a blow dryer & a set of round brushes & said: “You start beauty school on Monday, don’t mess this up,” and the rest, as they say is history.
Flash-forward 8 years and Garcia is still in awe and filled with gratitude for his unlikely career path. “I didn’t choose hairdressing—hairdressing chose me,” he says, “The universe was like Alright, Ramon, you’re a hairdresser now!”
Read on to discover more about Authentic Beauty Concept Advocate Ramon Garcia, hairdresser, and creator of Ghostlayers (more on that later).
I was trained at the Ramirez-Tran salon in Beverly Hills and that’s where I learned how to make hair move. I learned the intricacies of hair there.
Nature! I’m such an Aquarius, sometimes I’ll get distracted by the leaves blowing outside and run back to the salon with a whole vision in my head of how I want the hair to move.
Authenticity is being so true to yourself that everything you do could be made into a movie. It’s not about what trends are happening currently, it’s about how you feel when you wake up in the morning.
Authentic hair is natural, it’s not forcing the hair into a shape that doesn’t fit a person’s personality. In the same way that every single leaf is different—everyone’s hair is different too. Authentic hair is timeless because it is unique to each person. Anything that is truly unique becomes timeless.
Gather inspiration and continue to strive for growth. I’ve always lived my life wanting to do better—I’m not yet where I want to be for the rest of my life. Push yourself to do better every day, not to be better than anybody else but better than who you were yesterday. This will help you get to where you need to go faster.
That’s easy! Since I started in hairdressing, I’ve always looked for brands that match my vibe. To me, even just looking at the brand, it looks like it could be in a museum. It looks like a fashion magazine/ It’s so well curated and thought out. It doesn’t need to be the loudest in the room because the energy it exudes is enough.
I love that Authentic Beauty Concept is vegan AND performance driven. It’s not the traditional vegan product where you spray it and it doesn’t do anything, or does something weird to the hair. It’s about being healthy & putting healthy things back in your hair. I feel like what the world is coming back to during this time is looking back to mother nature to reinvigorate our bodies.
The Dry Shampoo is 100% my favorite product. It is perfect—it checks off every single box for a stylist like me. From the salon to the set, or New York to Miami, I can both recommend this to my clients and use it on their hair. It’s the perfect product to refresh the hair without leaving it feeling weighed-down.
Ghostlayers describes an energy around the way you can make hair move. A haircut that is completely customizable and works to maximize the movement of each individual client’s hair giving them volume, without giving them choppy layers. Overlayering the hair can really hurt the hair so this is my take on effortless hair.
