When a woman says that a good hair day changes her entire demeanor, she means it! This woman's hair transformation changed her day, year, and life in how much it impacted her. Originally, Holly had hair that was 2 feet long. Her long hair was impressive but unhealthy and made her very self conscious about it. When she went to a hair salon to get help with her hair and finally make the change she was ready for, the stylist stood there in utter shock at the state of her hair.
The challenge was absolutely there but the stylist was going to do whatever he could to make her the beauty that he knew she could be. Holly herself was shocked to see how different she looked and not only did her look change but how much the hair transformation changed her life. Going from where she started to where she ended up, Holly was not only physically unrecognizable but emotionally and mentally she did a complete 180 degree shift. This emotional and surprising journey is laid out right here before you, hopefully you are ready to be take aback by Holly and her incredible transformation.
Having only a few months to prepare for her wedding, Holly knew she needed to get her hair under control. While she knew she needed to do something different with her hair, especially since it is so long, she had absolutely no idea how much a change like her hair would do to her life.
As you can see here, this is Holly before she decided to make her dramatic change. The stylist here was about to change her life and even he was surprised with how much this hair shift made waves.
Holly's day job was as a guard and traffic controller on a nearby plantation. As soon as she walked into the hair salon the stylist had to blink a couple of times to make sure that he was seeing things properly.
Holly's hair was so long, did nothing for her figure, and made her look less confident than it should. For this makeover to take place, Holly would need to take the entire day off work and give the stylist a serious run for his money.
Holly's hair was not always two feet long! As you can see here in the photo from her social media account, she took care of her hair and took pride in her appearance.
There was something deeper to her reasoning for her look and it was time for her to change it all up. She wanted this change for herself more than she could express to her dear ones, and there was a very good reason for it too.
Holly was in love with her very serious boyfriend, Vashon Ridgeway. The two were together for a while and she knew she wanted to look better and feel better for her significant other. Her lack of care for her appearance shifted into a desire to look better than ever for her boyfriend.
It was not until Vashon popped the question that it all went into hyperdrive. Once she said "yes" to the man of her dreams, Holly knew she needed to get herself to a salon for her wedding.
As couples do once they get engaged, they posted their news all over their social media to let their nearest and dearest know the happy change of status. Holly even posted a photo of herself dress shopping, although she did not end up getting a dress yet, there was something stopping her from continuing her road to her wedding.
The question remained, however, why was Holly hesitating about planning her wedding, was there something she was holding back?
It is no secret that Holly's hair was a disaster in desperate need of taming and correcting. She walked into the Avant Garde Salon and knew that the work would be extensive as well as expensive.
She did, however, trust the stylists at the shop to do right by her and bring her hair to its true capabilities. When she walked into the salon her hair measured at a staggering two feet long, with a two-tone blonde that was not healthy in the least.
It turned out that Jeremy Hartfield, a senior stylist a the salon would be the one who would do the magical work on Holly and her hair. However, Jeremy was not alone in his hard task ahead, he had help from a younger hair stylist named Sara Pestella.
The two would work their hands and skills on Holly's mane and get it back to tip top shape, the kind of transformation that no one could have predicted - not even them.
While Jeremy was in charge of the cut, Sara was in charge of the color. Without Sara's skills, Holly's hair would be nowhere near the success story that it turned out to be.
As soon as Sara sat down with Holly to talk about hair color choices and the path they would go on together, Sara saw first-hand how much Holly's hair was a trigger for her and how much it affected her life.
Firstly, there was a reason Holly was trying to grow out her hair as long as she could. However, it was so all-consuming for her to grow her hair out that she became almost obsessed. It is hard to understand sometimes why people do what they do but it is almost always an emotional core to the issue.
Getting a hair cut is dramatic for many people, usually for fear of hating the haircut. In this case, Holly was concerned for multiple reasons.
Sara was given permission on behalf of Holly to explain why her long hair got to this point and where it all came from. Apparently, it all started with Holly's father.
Sara said, “[Holly] always felt like she needed to keep her hair long because of what her dad said: that a woman must have long hair or she wouldn’t be pretty without it.” It was Sara herself who was trying to help Holly overcome that as it is far from the truth of the matter.
The people at the salon were far more than hair stylists for Holly, they were her team that were rooting for her both in hair and in life. The team knew that changing Holly's hair was going to change much more than her appearance and took it upon themselves to be the extended family that she needed to help her be the most confident bride.
None of them knew that it would go far beyond Holly's wedding.
Senior stylist Jeremy had a knack for making big changes for his clients at the salon. He loved sharing his before and after photos of his clients on his social media and wanted to add Holly to his long list of happy clients.
Jeremy happily took control of the Holly project and could envision the changes in her hair that the team was going to do. The first cut is the deepest, they say, and in this case it was very true.
The first cut Jeremy did was the one that took off two feet from Holly's hair. Needless to say, the young woman was in shock when she saw the large chunk of hair on the floor.
Jeremy shared the images on his Instagram account so his followers could see what was going on. Holly was nervous as it is about the major change to her appearance, but Jeremy would do after the first cut that took off the blonde ends made her jaw drop even more.
Once Jeremy cut the first ponytail that he made, Holly looked up and screamed with elation. The other stylists came over to see what was happening and cheered at the beginning of the transformation.
Even with that little cut you could see Holly begin to change in her way of sitting. Jeremy knew he was on the right path and continued snipping away until all of her ponytails were without blonde ends and two feet.
There was still so much to do and a long way to go but without the length that Holly was carrying in her hair, she was already beginning to look like a totally different person. She smiled brighter, her neck was longer, and the way everything seemed was all around lighter.
Holly's hair was unrecognizable at this state with just one color and much more body to it now that the length was not holding it down.
Next on the list of things to do - color! Now that Jeremy had finished nearly all of Holly's haircut, it was time for Sara Pestella to work her color magic on Holly's hair.
While everything was going as planned, it was not until after some coloring that Sara realized that she had made a mistake. Now we all know Holly was already in a sensitive place, but could Sara come back and correct her wrongs?
The mistake here was not a huge one, the color that Sara ended up doing on Holly's hair was not exactly as Sara had pictured it in her mind. The red undertone to Holly's hair made it more vibrant than she wanted.
So, in order to fix it she added darker roots on Holly so that the look of the color would be more toned down. A good colorist knows what to do in these cases and Sara did not fail.
First there was a hair transformation, then it was time for makeup. When the makeup artist came to Holly and asked what she had in mind, Holly said “You know what? I’m getting married in November…do whatever you want!” and so the artist had creative liberty to do whatever she thought was appropriate for Holly.
With her permission, Holly got darker eye shadow and even darker and longer lashes. The bombshell that was inside of Holly was beginning to come out.
Eyes were only the beginning of the makeup for Holly, lips were next! Sara was the one to suggest the light pink color that was to be applied to Holly's lips. She knew that Holly needed just that color to make her lips pop and her hair to shine.
It is downright incredible what a little make-up can do for a woman's confidence and demeanor. Whether makeup is needed or not, it is there to beautify.
We literally mean overnight since it took seven hours from start to finish to change Holly's look to the way they all wanted it to be. All things considered it was not too bad but the stylist did say, “I started at 7:00 p.m.
and finished at 2:00 a.m. No kidding, this transformation was indeed overnight.” Now that the work was done, how was Holly feeling about this drastic change?
As soon as the transformation was complete, Holly looked in the mirror and saw a totally transformed woman. Sara said, “When we were done, Holly was so excited, She feels beautiful in her own skin.” As well she should considering she is indeed a beauty who needed a little help on the outside to bring out the true beauty that was bursting on the inside.
There was more than this reason that Holly was happy, though...
Holly got the surprise of her life when the salon surprised her with free hair styling for a whole year! For Holly, a woman who liked a very low key way to take care of her hair, this was crucial as she would need to give it a little more tender loving care than the two feet of hair that she was rocking prior to this transformation.
The salon knew that they wanted to create better habits for her and they were doing so well!
As with these types of stories, Holly's transformation went viral. Both Jeremy and Sara posted about Holly as the transformation was going on and their followers were quickly commenting and liking, enough to make internet buzz about Holly, making the posts viral.
It was Instagram that helped Holly become an overnight success and show women that a little self care can go a long way. Those who saw the posts were raving about the way Holly looked.
As with social media, everyone had something to say about Holly. Some were remaking about how beautiful she looked after the hard work that went into her transformation, while there were others who were were coming to the defense of her natural beauty before anyone did anything to her hair and face.
Now, while we agree with both, what truly matters is how Holly felt about her change and there was nothing bad that she could say about it.
The salon that took care of Holly and many other happy men and women was nominated for an EC Top Salon award for their work. The night of the event, the entire AvantGarde team prepared to go to the even, Holly included as an example of their exceptional work.
The whole salon and Holly had no idea what kind of night they were about to have and the emotional surprise that they were about to receive.
During the announcement of the nominees, it was the award themselves that said, “Meet @avantgardesalonspa’smodel, Holly Garrido,” EC Top Salon wrote on their Instagram account.
“The biggest thing Holly looks forward to with this event is being able to show her daughter that not only can a woman be strong, but also beautiful inside and out.” They wanted to make sure the world knew just how dramatic this was going to be for the salon and the woman who changed it all.
Along with Holly and the AvantGarde salon, there were plenty of other salons undergoing incredible transformations on women who were just as deserving. The award shared, “Take a look back at the before and after photos of [the] models and see just how amazing the transformations will be.” These are two of the women who were also changed by salons in the area and were nominated for the same award.
Did Holly's transformation make the cut?
As this photo shows, Avant Garde Salon’s Senior Stylist Jeremy Hartfield was at the event and was so happy to be a part of the award at all, let alone if they won or not.
He is seen here pointing towards the photo of the before and after of Holly's transformation, beaming with pride and hoping that the hard work the entire team went through was worth it (in more than just seeing the change).
It was Sara who ended up getting nominated for the award and giving a speech about Holly and all that they went through with helping her out. Her photo of Holly's before and after send a lot of surprising waves through the audience as people wanted to see Holly for themselves considering the major change.
Sara told Holly's story with her permission and explained the woman behind the transformation. The emotions were definitely running high.
The before and after, as you can see, is stunning. Holly went in one way and came out a totally different woman. Now it was time for Holly to be completely ready to walk down the aisle towards her future husband with all the confidence she now has.
However, before the wedding, what about that walk during the award ceremony that had everyone talking? We are sure you want to see that!
After Sara finished telling Holly's story to the audience at the award show, it was time for Holly to make her debut and walk down the catwalk to show everyone first hand what she looked like. As soon as Holly walked about people started clapping and cheering, amazed at how much Holly had changed and how her confidence level was through the roof.
A lot of love for hair and makeup can make one stand tall.
Once Holly finished showing off her beautiful self, she went backstage to photograph with her team of stylists whom she was very proud of. One of them wrote on their social media, “We are absolutely blown away by the support we received last night!” However, with that statement and all of the hard work, did the Avant Garde team win the award?
They did not do this to win the award but it surely would be a bonus.
Of course they won! The salon wrote on their professional instagram page, “We won! Thanks to our beautiful model Holly and the work of our stylists.
Taking home the title yet again, your #ECTopSalon 2017 is Avantgarde Salon and Spa with model Holly Garrido!” They were over the moon and so was Holly. She walked into the salon for her own needs and ended up helping the salon as much as they ended up helping her.