Meet Charly Wilson: Hairstylist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Charly Wilson and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Charly, how has your work-life balance changed over time?
I think it’s always important to remember that work is a PART of our lives. With that in mind, it has always been important to me to keep a balance to fight burn out or work weariness. When I first started in the industry I wanted to build my business, get my work out there and gain much needed experience. As my schedule got busier and workload heavier, I chose to honor my weekends well by waiting to respond to messages until I was back at work. I also made sure to spend one day “at rest” and just spending time with family and friends instead of doing chores around the house (this was VERY hard for me to learn!). A few years into the industry I had some days I was so busy that I didn’t have time to eat or drink water, and I suffered. After work I would be so exhausted and drained that I had no time or energy for anyone or anything and then would end up overeating and over watching tv. This was a frustrating cycle that someone who loves me had to challenge me to get out of, and now I choose to bring food that I can be snacking on throughout the day, making time to drink water and do some deep breathing and relaxing in order to not feel rushed and open up my mind creatively. I also take breaks through the day to go outside and take short walks or read a book, and this has been so helpful! Nowadays life looks quite different due to COVID, and after spending five weeks not working I realized I needed to make some changes. So I decided to work a shorter work week, focusing my attention to Tuesday through Thursday and working less Friday and Saturday in order to be more present in volunteering, time with family, milestone celebrations, and the like. The balance of working hard when I’m in the salon and being able to have some more time to garden, read, sit in my pool, and host more dinners has been phenomenal. Not only am I more excited about my life, I look forward to work more and feel the creative juices flowing freely and easily. As time goes on, I know my value of balance will continue and this will look differently in different phases of my life. I look forward to being flexible to those changes and to how that improves my life overall.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
My professional career has progressed fairly quickly which has been fun, not necessarily easy though. The biggest challenge that I faced were mostly gaining experience, learning how to best communicate and figuring out my technique. Realizing that mistakes are opportunities to learn was my biggest help! I chose to take a lot of classes, work with a lot of mannequins, watch a ton of YouTube, and practice, practice, practice. I learned to be gracious with myself and continue working hard to improve. I would want everyone to see that I have a heart and vision to help everyone feel good about their hair and with that vision I do my best to give a thorough consultation, stay up on the latest trends, and overall have a mindset to put my guests first!

Any great local spots you’d like to shoutout?
Being from Tucson, I’m so excited to share this town with people! I love the Gaslight Theater, such fun and yummy food. Of course I would take them to Saguaro Corners because of their fabulous patio and delicious food and cocktails. We would also have to go to Guadalajara Grill because amazing food AND table side salsa!! Some other top picks would be Sabino Canyon (with a picnic at the dam), Mount Lemmon (gotta have pizza and cookies at the Cookie Cabin!), Old Tucson, and Trail Dust Town. I also think we have got a lot of great breweries, like Pueblo Vida and 1912, and Barrio, so all of those and more would be on the list. I personally think Downtown Tucson is eclectic and worth a walk around! I love popping into Creations for an outfit, Congress for a Bloody Mary, and Highwire and Independent for a yummy cocktail and cool atmosphere. To finish off, sometime in the trip would include a Sonoran dog and some tacos from BK’s!