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ERIKA BETHEA 2023 MASTER PIONEER

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NATURAL HAIR EDUCATOR, CONSULTANT, LICENSED COSMETOLOGIST, ADVOCATE

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For 15 years, Erika Bethea has been unapologetically passionate about nurturing and educating women and girls who wear their naturally textured hair. Erika’s inspiration as an African dancer led her to appreciate naturally textured hair. 

 

In 2010, Ms. Bethea opened Honeylocs Natural Hair Care Salon in Plano, Texas; here she teaches her clients and staff how to embrace their textured hair as part of her goal to make textured hair styles a “standard” of beauty around the world.  

 

As an industry visionary,  Erika sees the natural hair industry and textured hair inclusion  as a path to emotional healing, self care and wellbeing to all black women around the world.  As a result, Ms. Bethea is committed  to elevate awareness of textured hair bias and textured hair discrimination within the beauty industry in America and abroad.

 

With over 15 years experience as a loctician and natural hair stylist Erika is a Licensed Cosmetologist graduating with honors from Toni & Guy Academy and a Rezo Certified Curly Cutting  and Color Specialist.  She is also a HBCU graduate of Winston Salem State University with a B.A in Business administration. 

 

In 2015  she co-authored the book  Behind Her Brand Vol 2, where she shares her journey to becoming a beauty industry artist.  Behind Her Brand Vol 2 is her  journey of lessons,  obstacles, thought processes, and victories she went through during the early stages of building her business.   Erika candidly shares her genesis journey of entrepreneurship to encourage other female entrepreneurs along their path to building their businesses. 

 

In 2020, Erika immersed herself into Ghanaian culture and  expanded her natural hair educational consulting services to Ghana, West Africa  where she now lives as a dual citizen.  During her time spent in Ghana, she recognized the opportunity to build a bridge with the Natural Hair Community through education of textured hair cutting, coloring and styling. 

 

Ms. Bethea recently partnered with Mane Moves media to produce the informative Instagram Live series: Building Bridges: The Ghana Connection. Erika’s professional mission is to partner with other Natural Hair Industry leaders to facilitate a Global Natural Hair Educational Convention and the International Stylist Exchange based in Ghana,  West Africa.

 

“My passion is to create a legacy framework that will uplift our community, as we honor our past because we stand on the shoulders of the tireless Black Women entrepreneurs who came before us."

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