Jonathan Wyatt looks over a drawer full of hair clippers at his shop, Beauty and Barber. Some of the clippers are specialized to accommodate clients with different sensory needs, Wyatt said.
Bridgette Fox/Journal-Courier
When Jonathan Wyatt’s oldest son, who has autism spectrum disorder, got his first haircut about a decade ago, it didn’t go well.
That experience led Wyatt to the downtown business he now runs with his partner.
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“We got about half the haircut done, and I just I told (the stylist) it was OK, we didn’t have to do no more,” Wyatt said. “I got clippers at work that next day … at that point, I just started cutting it myself.”
Wyatt wasn’t that good at first, he said, but he kept at it and started getting tips from his barber friends. Eventually, Wyatt decided to become a barber, so he got his General Educational Development high school-equivalency degree and enrolled in barber school.
“I didn’t really have the confidence, or honestly, I never had anything push me to really feel like I needed my GED,” Wyatt said. “Once I realized I needed my GED to get my license, that’s when it really pushed me.”
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For the past three months, Wyatt, 34, and his partner, Heaven Piercy, 29, have been running Beauty and Barber. Wyatt does hair, and Piercy does esthetics including waxing, facials and eyelash extensions. She got her license at the end of January. Before that, she was working in fast food and he was working at Walmart.
“He got into barbering, and I had always known that there was something skin-related that I wanted to do, and I was just like, ‘You know what?’ We had a vision to open a barber shop, and I was like, ‘Let’s do this together,’” Piercy said.
The shop hasn’t done much to advertising Piercy’s services, she said, noting she gets client from people who tagged along for their loved one’s haircut.
“That’s really what we’re targeting,” she said. “It’s to be more convenient for moms bringing their kids in here to get haircuts — they can have a service performed on them, as well, so they’re not just sitting here. Or same thing with girlfriends; a teenage couple comes in, and a boy’s getting this haircut, the girlfriend has something that she could do.”
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Wyatt likes giving haircuts to customers with autism because that’s where he started, he said. He has special clippers that are quieter than his standard clippers so it’s a better sensory experience for clients who are sensitive to sound.
“He does do very well with children who have autism or disabilities when they struggle because he can connect with them on that level,” Piercy said.
The two soon will be adding a sign to their 3-month-old business, and they want to have more advertisement out front so people know they’re there. The shop, at 218 S. Main St., used to sell skateboards, though, it’s better known as a former military recruitment office, Wyatt said.
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“We saw this place and we were like this is just too good to pass up,” Piercy said.