Lucy Gellman Photo
Smith-Holness in the WNHH studio.
Karaine Smith-Holness didn’t think that moving to West Haven from Kingston, Jamaica, and then to New Haven from West Haven, would instill in her a new appreciation for her Jamaican heritage, or the thought of opening a business like Hair’s Kay Salon. Not initially, at least.
She was wrong. A space available next door to her in-laws’ business, the popular Jamaican restaurant Tropical Delights, led to a thought: She could open a shop doing what she best knew how to do — hair. It was instinctive for the young Smith-Holness, an immigrant to the United States who had started doing — and thinking critically about — coiffures during an apprenticeship on Hope Road in Jamaica.
“One of the things that I can always remember is how beautiful those women’s hair looked,” she said in an interview on WNHH’s “LoveBabz LoveTalk.” program. “The movement when the wind got it, and how it flowed. That’s always in the back of my head.”
“I didn’t know anything about being in business. My first thought was: ‘I just know how to do hair,” she added. “That was a jump in the water … on the job training. It was quite challenging, but I’ve always had some of the best clients ever.”
Those clients, she said, are the biggest secret to her successful almost-21 years in business. (The actual 21-year anniversary is Jan. 6, 2016.) They “have always been instrumental in making sure that I stay current and … They just support me in the things that I didn’t know … I look at them as partners in the business. That’s why we do things different from everybody else.”
”A Great Partnership”
Hair’s Kay Photo
One of those “partners in business” is Rawls-Ivy herself, who proclaimed Smith-Holness a “sister-friend and glam captain” at the beginning of the episode. Another is Mayor Toni Harp, whom Smith-Holness praised for taking care of her do between appointments.
“I’m going to give her a lot of credit,” she said. “She listens. She really and truly takes the time, because she’s taking so many pictures, and her days are ridiculously long. She’s been doing an amazing job. It’s a great partnership.”
“She makes it a priority because she’s always on the go, to always make sure her hair looks good,” she added.
The other secret to her success and happiness in New Haven, she said during the episode, is a newfound love for her Jamaican heritage, which she has been able to practice as president and co-founder of the Jamaican-American Connection, an organization that holds parties and public festivals, and offers scholarships to Caribbean natives, helping them adjust to life in America. The group encompasses not just Jamaicans, she added, but all “Islanders,” from other nations like the Trinidad, the Dominican Republican, the British Virgin Islands.
“It was a group of people wanting to make a difference,” she said of starting the organization. “We’re here. We’re transplanted here. We were born in Jamaica, our children are born here … just trying to hold on to our heritage … I happen to live in New Haven and I love New Haven, but I’m Jamaican. When I was growing up I don’t think I appreciated it as much as I do now, and so sharing that wing my children — I have three children — and one of the things I realized is, well, we are losing out culture.
“It’s such a rich culture … so we decided that we’re here, we have properties here, we have businesses here, we’re contributing to the city, the state, the country, and so we should have a voice. We should be able to … when other immigrants come, be of support to them in terms of jobs, just settling in … stuff like that. We needed to find a way to come together, so that’s why we started our organization.”
Together, those two core business tenets have helped Smith-Holness reach her goals, and keep going. When she holds her well-deserved party early next year, she’ll be looking at everything that has made Hair’s Kay what it is, and also looking ahead. Part of that, she said to Rawls-Ivy during the episode, is about knowing exactly what kind of business she wants to run.
“We’re competing with the girl down the street that can do hair. We’re competing with the YouTubers that can do hair … so the market now is kind of …” she trailed off for a moment. “Weaves is a big deal. It’s a huge deal. But I make a lot of money correcting that.”
“When I started as a hairdresser, I did everything that was happening,” she added. “The freeze n’ curl, the weaves with all these different things that was damaging to the hair, and so one day I just said: ‘is this what I really want?’”
It wasn’t. And so she started making the salon into exactly what she wanted it to be. Hair-damaging treatments went out the window. Natural styles were embraced and celebrated. She added the annual homeless hair cutting on the New Haven Green to her repertoire. And her clients started to feel that in return almost immediately.
“When you go over to Kay’s salon,” it’s about empowering and uplift,” Rawls-Ivy said. “We talk a little bit of politics on the local and the global, but mostly, it’s about how women can support women. That’s why I like going over there.”
“What’s your secret to longevity?” she asked as a follow-up.
“I just think … being authentic, being you, constantly redoing you,” Smith-Holness answered. “Almost every five years, you take a good look. You ask the hard questions. You ask your clients: ‘OK. Where am I slacking? What do I need to do?’ And trust me, when you ask their opinion, they are going to tell you. You have to be very willing and strong to take it.”
“That’s what keeps me going.”
Courtesy Frontier
This interview is part of WNHH-LP’s “Open For Business” series on immigrant business owners and leaders in the nonprofit community. “Open for Business is sponsored by Frontier Communications. Frontier is proud to be Connecticut’s hometown provider of TV and internet for your home and business. The phone number is 1.888.Frontier and the website is Frontier.com.