About Not just a Hairdresser | Presented by Ally from The Beauty Grail
You’re not “just” a hairdresser and this industry is anything but small.
Not Just a Hairdresser is a podcast about leadership, entrepreneurship, and resilience in the hair and beauty industry, an industry that’s been overlooked, underestimated, and blazing a trail for decades.
Hosted by Ally, founder of The Beauty Grail, the podcast features bold hair and beauty leaders who are building real careers and businesses from the ground up. Through raw conversations and real world experience, Ally uncovers what it actually takes to grow, scale, and succeed in an industry that doesn’t follow traditional rules.
If you’re ready to challenge the narrative, back yourself, and build something bigger than the chair, this podcast is for you.
8. Ash Croker: The Pink Palace, Big Career Moves & Launching Maria Nila Colour in Australia
Ash Croker has spent more than two decades building a career around the thing she still loves most: doing hair. From commuting from Wollongong to Sydney as a 17-year-old apprentice, to opening The Salon by Ash Croker, better known as the Pink Palace, her career has grown across salon ownership, education, Fashion Week and some of the industry’s biggest brand partnerships. In this episode, Ash opens up about the decisions behind that growth, including closing her salon every Tuesday to invest ...
3 Sept 2026
7. $600 and a Suitcase: How Leticia Prado Built a Multi Million Dollar Haircare Brand Sold in 56 Countries
At 21, Leticia Prado arrived in Australia with just $600, a suitcase full of keratin treatments, and a determination to build a better life for herself and her mum. Within 24 hours of landing, she'd booked her first client through a Brazilian Facebook group. Before long, she was washing clients' hair in her apartment bathtub and running a fully booked home salon. In this episode, Ally sits down with Leticia, founder of BKT (Beauty Keeps Transforming), to unpack the journey from home salon to ...
21 Jul 2026
6. How Mackenzie Hayward Built Attache Line from One Simple Salon Problem
After 10 years behind the chair, Mackenzie Hayward was tired of balancing bowls, bottles and brushes while delivering premium colour services. She searched for a tool that would make life easier for hairdressers working solo. When she couldn't find one, she decided to build it herself. It wasn't an overnight success. The journey involved years of prototyping, countless manufacturer rejections, rebuilding her confidence after a major weight loss journey, and learning how to step out from behi...
17 Jun 2026
5. Sheridan Rose Shaw: Building a Hairdressing Legacy
Sheridan Rose Shaw left school at 14 and found her way into hairdressing after struggling to fit into traditional education. What followed was far from a straight line. Over the next decade, she experienced career highs and personal lows, including addiction, homelessness, recovery, and the challenge of rebuilding her life from the ground up. In this episode, Ally sits down with the founder of MAMAWEST to discuss the experiences that shaped her, the lessons learned through 13 years of sobriet...
10 May 2026
4. Kirsty Anne Sage: The Truth About Hustle, Burnout & Reinvention in the Hair Industry
Kirsty-Anne Sage comes from a long line of hairdressers. Her nan. Her auntie. And a school system that quickly realised traditional learning wasn’t going to be her path. With what she calls “crippling ADHD” and a deeply visual brain, she was sent to TAFE to try hairdressing. It clicked instantly. By second year, she was running a salon alone after the owner fell ill. Signed off early. Thrown in the deep end. From there it was two years here, two years there. Renting a chair. Opening a salon. ...
6 Apr 2026
3. Dom Pelli: From the Barber Shop Floor to becoming one of Australia’s Most In-Demand Celebrity Stylists
Dom Pelli was born into hair. Not metaphorically. Literally. His grandfather opened a barbershop in Western Sydney after migrating from Italy. His father followed. So did the rest of the family. Hair wasn’t just a career path, it was the language spoken at the dinner table. At 16, after being told school wasn’t where his future lied, Dom left and stepped straight into an apprenticeship. But instead of entering the world of Celebrity Syling, his career started behind a barber chair. For five y...
5 Mar 2026
2. Natalie Anne: From Her Mum’s Garage to Paris Fashion Week
Three generations of hairdressers shaped Natalie Anne’s path. Weekends in her mum's salon. The smell of perm solution. The gossip. The glam. Hair chose her long before she chose it. She took the long road. An apprenticeship at Toni & Guy. Early assisting. Mentorship under strong, no-nonsense industry women. Then, like many ambitious 19-year-olds, she left too soon, started her own thing, and fell flat on her face. More than once. The reset came in her mum’s garage. That’s where she rebuil...
25 Jan 2026
1. The Truth about Building a Salon, a Brand & a Community you're proud of with Kaine & Ayden Vakai
What happens when you stop shrinking your work down to “just hair” and start owning everything you really are? In this very first episode of Not Just a Hairdresser, Ally sits down with Kaine and Ayden Vakai, the co-founders behind House of Vakai, for a raw, funny, emotional, and deeply honest conversation about what it actually takes to build a career and a business in the hair industry. Kaine takes us all the way back to growing up in a hairdressing family, starting his apprenticeship at 14,...
12 Jan 2026
Welcome to Not just a Hairdresser, Presented by Ally from The Beauty Grail
You’re not “just” a hairdresser and this industry is anything but small. Not Just a Hairdresser is a podcast about leadership, entrepreneurship, and resilience in the hair and beauty industry, an industry that’s been overlooked, underestimated, and blazing a trail for decades. Hosted by Ally, founder of The Beauty Grail, the podcast features bold hair and beauty leaders who are building real careers and businesses from the ground up. Through raw conversations and real world experience, Ally...
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