Braid hair­styles con­tin­ue to be trendy, not just be­cause they seem to make al­most every woman look beau­ti­ful but they make some of the best pro­tec­tive hair­styles that any woman could want. Jer­nice Ramirez is a 25-year-old braid styl­ist or as many peo­ple may know her, is the “queen of the pack” when it comes to braid­ed styles in the lo­cal play­ing field. She on­ly start­ed do­ing braids part-time while pur­su­ing her un­der­grad­u­ate de­gree in Hu­man Re­sources. Athough she is a self taught hair­styl­ist, her work cer­tain­ly stands out as it is al­ways very neat­ly and pro­fes­sion­al­ly done. Her jour­ney in hair braid­ing be­gan when she was asked by her friends to braid their hair. This be­came a con­stant re­quest af­ter they no­ticed how skill­ful she was at it and be­fore she knew it, her busi­ness Queen of The Pack was born. Af­ter build­ing a sol­id clien­tele of women who fre­quent­ly sought af­ter some of her best style - feed in braids, box braids and faux locs, Jer­nice’s brand be­came more iden­ti­fi­able on the streets. Many women have left her sa­lon feel­ing like the queens she made them in­to. Jer­nice took a mo­ment to give us the in­side scoop on her ex­pe­ri­ence in her beau­ty world along with some of her best tips. Here’s what she had to share:

One thing your cus­tomers can re­al­ly count on you for?

One thing I be­lieve my clients can count on me for is qual­i­ty in any style I pro­duce.

Three best mile­stones in your life/pro­fes­sion?

In my pro­fes­sion, I be­lieve one of my best mile­stones was re­al­iz­ing that my work/ brand stood on its own as it was be­ing recog­nised not on­ly lo­cal­ly but on an in­ter­na­tion­al lev­el. Clients and even po­ten­tial clients would boast about be­ing able to iden­ti­fy my work be­fore re­ceiv­ing con­fir­ma­tion that it is in fact mine. An­oth­er would be com­plet­ing my de­gree in Hu­man Re­source Man­age­ment with hon­ors. It was def­i­nite­ly chal­leng­ing build­ing a brand and stay­ing abreast with school work and I hon­est­ly lost the healthy bal­ance be­tween the two at times but thank­ful­ly my sup­port sys­tem was strong and they al­ways aid­ed in my re­align­ment. The best mile­stone in my per­son­al life would be when I re­de­fined my idea of suc­cess and it is the one I deem most im­por­tant. For me, life re­al­ly isn’t about ma­te­r­i­al pos­ses­sions but build­ing mean­ing­ful re­la­tion­ships and ex­pe­ri­ences, tak­ing care of one’s men­tal health and re­main­ing re­al­is­tic about one’s goals in a time where so­cial me­dia has been pro­ject­ing a lot of false and rushed time­lines on goals and the pro­mo­tion of fast liv­ing.

When did you re­al­ize you want­ed to be a hair­styl­ist?

Dur­ing the pe­rusal of my de­gree in 2016, I re­al­ized I had un­in­ten­tion­al­ly changed the di­rec­tion my life was head­ing as I was braid­ing in all the free time I had. My love for the art peaked when I re­al­ized it was more than just a hair­style be­ing pro­vid­ed, in many in­stances it was a boost­er to some­one’s con­fi­dence and that’s re­al­ly sat­is­fy­ing know­ing you can con­tribute to some­one view­ing them­selves as beau­ti­ful.

How do stay abreast of the lat­est braid trends?

Hon­est­ly, it’s re­al­ly easy to stay up­dat­ed with the lat­est trends due to so­cial me­dia, how­ev­er, I pre­fer to pro­vide pro­tec­tive styles that pro­motes fea­tures such as longevi­ty and health. So un­less the “trend” sup­ports this, it’s not re­al­ly a wave I’d ride.

Three hair braid­ing care tips.

1. Let your hair­styl­ist know when a style is too tight and do not re­quest that the style be done tighter in hopes that it will last you longer... tight­ness does not equate longevi­ty or doesn’t mean that the style is neater some­times it just con­tributes to hair loss.

2. Dur­ing the pe­ri­od in which you are wear­ing a pro­tec­tive style it is im­por­tant to keep your hair mois­tur­ized to avoid dry­ness and break­age. De­pend­ing on the style your styl­ist can in­form you of the best way to do so.

3. Satin scarfs can be used at night with a bit of mousse to keep your hair neat for a longer pe­ri­od.

4. Don’t leave pro­tec­tive styles in for too long no mat­ter how tempt­ing it may be as the style be­comes less pro­tec­tive over time as it can lead to dry­ness and break­age, es­pe­cial­ly if it is not prop­er­ly cared for. Two weeks to two months can be con­sid­ered healthy de­pend­ing on the style.