The Bossticks - #136: Justin Anderson - Celebrity Hair Colorist, Launching a Brand Online, Success Strategies, Hair Color, Influencer Marketing & Recipes for Success

Episode Date: September 11, 2018

On this episode we sit down with celebrity hair colorist Justin Anderson. Justin is not just any celebrity hair colorist, he is also a serial entrepreneur and co-founder of the dpHUE hair care line. On this episode we discuss celebrity hair, growing up gay and mormon, family dynamics, pursuing your dream and life path, passion for your career, influencer marketing, launching a product in the digital age, how to create impactful content, authentic brand building, filtering good advice and bad advice, hair color advice, mistakes people make with hair color, & recipes for success.  To connect with Justin Anderson click HERE To connect with Lauryn Evarts click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) **For this episode dpHUE is offering all Him & Her Listeners $10 off all products when using code skinnyHUE at checkout WOO FOR PLAY is the all natural and organic coconut love oil that is changing the way we have sex. With only 4 all natural ingredients WOO is the perfect personal lubricant to spice up your sex life.  All Him & Her Listeners will receive 20% off your entire order plus free shipping when when visiting www.wooforplay.com & using promo code HIMANDHER at checkout. This episode is brought to you by THRIVE MARKET. We use Thrive for our online grocery delivery on a weekly basis. They provide the highest quality products and ingredients delivered straight to our door with unbeatable prices.  Be sure to grab our deal by going to to https://thrivemarket.com/skinny to receive 25% off your first order + free shipping and a 30 day trial. This episode was brought to you by Third Love Third Love knows there's a perfect bra for everyone, so right now they are offering TSC listeners 15% off your first order! If you want to get your own perfect fitting bra Go to www.thirdlove.com/skinny and get 15% off your first purchase! 

The following podcast is a dear media production. Are you looking to spice up your sex life? If you are, I got you covered, okay? I have an all-organic coconut lube for you, okay? Thought you were going to say you were heading to their houses. Natural ingredients, four of them, four main ones, like coconut oil, beeswax, vanilla essence, and stevia. We like a little taste in there. Anyway, woo for play, it's amazing.

it enhances your sex life, and it's great if you get UTIs a lot, okay? So go to wooferplay.com and inner promo code, him and her at checkout for 20% off your entire order. I would even grab two bottles. Again, that's wooferplay.com, W-O-O-O-F-O-R-P-L-A-Y dot com and inner promo code him and her for 20% off. This episode is brought to you by a third love. So when it comes to a brawn pajamas, I like to check my boxes.

You know what I mean? I don't ask for much. I just want the perfect fit. I like a lot of size options, quality, and convenience. And you know I'm not a mall person at all. I like to order online. So enter Third Love, okay? I have been wearing Third Love pajamas and bras for the last six months. I'm obsessed. Okay, if you want to check it out, go to thirdlove.com slash skinny and get 15% off your first purchase. Make sure you use the code, guys. That's thirdlove.com slash skinny for 15% percent. percent off today. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire.

Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to the skinny confidential, him and her. So I went to beauty school and it was one of those things. It's like I always tell people if you, if there's something that you have a passion for,

chances are if you follow it and you have to like overcome some sort of obstacle like you're going to be good at it right like I just knew if I go to beauty school I'm going to be really good you know it's like when I was in beauty school I'm like I want to work on Jennifer Aniston you know like I want to work on Kim basing or now those are two of my clients you know so it's like so how did I get there I think it was just really um I work my ass off I won't stop until I get what I want you know what I can attest to it I've seen it yeah like I mean I this morning I'm at yoga at 5 a.m then I go to gym and work out with a trainer after and it's like I know I need to get all the workout stuff before 7 a.m. because it's like the day after that just keeps going. I go to bed at 8 o'clock

because I want to like wake up really early. So I'm just I've always been super super driven. Even though I was like a 13 year old kid, I used to set my alarm, wake up and go for runs before school, you know? And it's like what kid does stuff like that? Here we are again coming in hot with another episode of the him and her show, the hymn show, her show, both. That clip was from our guests of the show today, celebrity hair colorist, which I just learned. That's the problem to say it. Justin Anderson, on this episode, we discuss hair, family dynamics, pursuing your dream and life path, passion for your career, influencer marketing, launching a product online,

how to create impactful content, authentic brand building, and recipes and strategies for success. A lot in this episode. What up, guys? I am Lauren Everts, the creator of the Skinny Confidential, which is a cheeky resource for beauty, wellness, and business. And I'm Michael Bostick. entrepreneur and brand builder most recently most frequently the CEO of dear media which is a new kind of podcast network marrying the digital world to the audio space here we go here we go here we go

so i'm very very excited about this episode because i think justin has the best personality like he has so much charisma he's so funny he's so warm he has strength and warmth as you would say a compelling person has michael bostic well you know what's interesting um i went into this episode. I met Justin one time once at the D.P. Hugh House when you were getting your hair done. And I met him and I thought he was rad. And then I was like, okay, he's coming on the show. And I figured, okay, it'll be one of those shows where I'm kind of lost. Don't know how interested I am in hair color. You're interested in your own hair, though. I am. But then I started talking to Justin and this guy packs a punch. He is extremely interesting, extremely well read,

a serial entrepreneur himself, co-founder of the D.P. Hugh brand. And we had a long conversation that I was very interested in and I'm interested in him. He's very, very well-rounded. And he commands the presence of a room and you're just like attracted to him. He has a magnetic personality, I would say. I think that this is one of my favorite interviews personally. It was great. We had a conversation, Justin and I after and I told him,

and I don't tell this to a lot of people that he is. And Justin, you are, if you're listening, a compelling person. And a compelling person in my book is somebody that has strength and warmth. strength meaning they'll get shit done warmth meaning they don't just get stuff done for themselves so that's a compliment at the highest regard Justin you're a rock star do you think your wife is a compelling person you're something

before I get into my hair I want to talk about your hair how long does it take for you to do your hair be real no honestly not long be real not long it just comes like this what if I hide your hairbrush I got more now so I'm good so I wanted to surprise Michael Michael's had the same hairbrush since high school. I'm not kidding, you guys, we call it Old Blue. You know that if you've been following along for a while. So Old Blue is looking real old. It's like a weathered,

old, old blue brush. So I wanted to buy him the exact same brush, but could not find it anywhere. I went into the dark, deep depths of the internet to find you another old blue. finally, after about a hundred million hours of search, I found you old red. Well, now I have, it's new red and new black, so now I have black, blue, and red. Right. Anyway, Michael's hair is looking better than ever. He has his rough pace that he talked about on his master list. You guys will have to listen to that episode to hear his hair secrets.

But yeah. Maybe Justin will dye my hair blonde and who knows. I could see you wanting to do that after me. Since we're on the subject of beauty in this podcast, I want to talk to you about Thrive Market. Thrive Market does not just have food, guys, okay? It also has beauty and wellness products. I actually get a bunch of my beauty items there. If we're getting specific, like we always are, I get Aztec healing clay mask. Okay, this is such a find. It's like six bucks. It's the best clay and it pulls impurities out of your face. So if you have a

Zit, you can just throw it on with a little apple cider vinegar, which you can also get it thrive. I like the Braggs one. And you mix it up, little water, put it on your face and let it sit there for as long as you can stand it. Then I also like the Egyptian magic cream. I get both of these items off thrive. If you haven't tried Egyptian magic cream, you're missing out. What I like to do with this is put it all over my face, all over my chest, all over my boobs, all over my hands, all over my arms, all over everywhere, really. It's this amazing cream that I like to sleep with, and I just feel like it nourishes your skin. It's insane. You can even do this after your Aztec healing clay mask. And even while you're at it, since you have the apple cider vinegar, just take a little shot.

You know what else? Sometimes I do steal your Egyptian magic cream. Rub that on my face. But I was just in to Thrive's headquarters the other day talking to their marketing team about some other stuff. And they have a whole section of products that is actually developed by Thrive Market themselves. I fell in love with their beef jerky. Caroline, if you're listening to this, send me more beef jerky. Love that stuff, guys. You got to try this stuff. It's Thrive, Beef Jerky brand. Anyways, I don't want to take your beauty segment, but they don't just have household supplies. They have a lot of great food supplies. They have their own packaging, granola, all this stuff. So, I gave me a whole bag. He's talked about this beef jerky for like hours and hours and hours. I've never seen you so attached to a certain food. I ate a whole bag today. I don't know how many jerky eaters there are out there. Would I like it? Yeah, you try some. I got to try it. I got to try it. I'll try it why I have my Aztec Healing Clay mask on. Okay. Thrive Market is offering. all TSC, him and her listeners, 25% off your first order in free shipping with a one-month trial when you go to thrivemarket.com slash skinny. Again, that's thrivemarket.com slash skinny.

And make sure you guys check out the skinny confidential page that has all my favorites on it. Happy shopping. Justin Anderson is one of the most coveted celebrity hair colorists in Hollywood. Justin's signature Southern California style has landed his work on the covers of L. W. Cosmo, glamour, and much more. He's also the go-to guy for Jennifer Aniston, Miley Cyrus, Margaret Robbie, Gillian Michaels, Kim Basinger, Kelly Osborne, Ireland Baldwin, and Emma Roberts, to name a few, you guys. His work ranges from naturally beautiful to cutting edge trends, like my platinum do. He also happens to be the creative director of D.P. Hugh, which has the best apple cider vinegar rinse, okay? You got to try it. With that, welcome to the show, Justin Anderson.

This is the skinny confidential, him and her. No, because I don't like things to be that natural, actually. Like, I love really long hair. I think the guy that does their hair, I'm just kind of like over it. Like, okay, you're putting like a long ass ponytail in every girl. Like, I just want things to be a little bit different, you know? Yeah. I also think that one girl in that family, I know Kendall's kind of the most different.

I'm going to be completely lost in this conversation. Yeah. I'm just going to try to keep up. But I feel like one girl in that family needs to be like kind of like high fashion and like use like, I don't know. I'm just like, I think. that whole thing is changing like the over the top like everything are we good to go that guy I don't know what these two are you guys kissing back there are we're going to go you guys kissing back in what my assistant

alexie we're rolling cool good Alexi did um Kylie's hair with the guy who colored her hair okay so he love him yeah he's the sweetest ever and it's so funny because the guy who colors their hair like brought alexie in because he wants to get all the blonde tricks you know because Alexi works from you do have the blonde tricks I do have the blonde tricks before we get into this interview I need to ask you one thing how good is Michael's hairline? It's so good. Like, who gets to have that? I know.

It's why I married him. Give me something. You need to think about those things for sure when you like pick a guy that. I tell girls that all the time. You know what? I was stressed today because both times I've seen you now, it's like been at the very furthest point of me getting a haircut. So I'm like, fuck, man.

He's probably going to be like looking at my hair. He's not looking at your hair. You have such good hair. He's looking at my janky extension. He's not looking at that. I didn't inspect if he had a cul-de-sac and nothing's happening. just stays there, his eyebrows, everything. It's so lucky.

You got the one thing. It's so good. I'll take it. You'll buy other things, too. Okay, so I want to go back with your childhood because you're very close to your siblings. Very close. One of them works for you. Yeah, my sister does work for me.

She works for me full time. I stole her from her other job. My sister and I've been like best friends forever. We lived together for years just up until recently because she got engaged. I have a boyfriend. So we had to like move out. from each other. But we're really, really close. But I grew up in a really tight Mormon family. So I'm from like a really big Mormon family. Tons of cousins on both sides of the family.

I grew up in Pasadena, California, where there's actually not a lot of Mormons. It's just literally all the Anderson Mormons. So we were like the big Mormon family there. But my thing that I always tell people is like, it's weird that I do hair because I grew up around like all these guy cousins who all did like construction, right? And then all of us cousins, we did go to college, there's a lot of professional athletes in our family. So everyone like played sports, went to college, blah, and then I was in college knowing in my head that I wanted to drop out and go to beauty school,

but I was so afraid to tell like my Mormon family. But after my junior year of college, I was like in a fraternity, I was pretending I was straight. I was like pardoned, I was doing that whole thing. And there was nothing that I wanted to do. I think I was studying like the hospitality industry because I was like, I wanna open like a bar,

a restaurant or a club, like wanted to be that guy that every mom tells their daughter to run from, you know. But I was like, I really didn't want to do any that. So I finally decided to tell my parents that I was going to beauty school. And I remember. What's that reaction like? When I called, so my parents were on, my grandparents live in Hawaii. So my parents were visiting my grandparents in Hawaii.

How do you get close to this like this? Oh, yeah. You got to get real involved. Yeah. I've never been that close to something to look like that. My, my family was in Hawaii and I called my mom and I told her. And I was like shaking. I was so nervous to tell her.

And my mom like lost her mind. Like she was pissed. Like what do you talk? And I think at that time she was kind of nervous about me. coming out of the closet. My mom and I are still so close and she's so supportive of me being gay in a relationship and all that kind of stuff. But at that time, I think a mom's a little bit like, they're scared, you know, that's like, I think at that time, my mom's like, she didn't have any gay friends or it just made her nervous, you know, but I think that me saying I wanted to go to

beauty school was kind of like the introduction to like, your son's a homo, you know, it's like, get prepared, you know, so she, she was pissed. But her immediate thing was like, fine, and just move to Beverly Hills and be a gay hairdresser. Like, that's not a real profession. Like, and like no hairdresser makes any money. And the thing is, is like my personality, I think being the middle boy in the family, being the gay boy in the family, like, I love to prove people wrong. Like, I want to like stand up. I feel like it's like we all have that one thing that kind of makes us like work that much

harder. I have to tell you every successful person we've had on this podcast, I swear to God, has said what has fueled them initially is proving something. I just got chills. I like believe it so much. That's why whenever I work with like a really successful client, like I like to ask all those questions, you know, like what makes you strive? Because there's always something there, you know, whether it's, you were bullied as a kid, you grew up in a family where you knew you were

different, you know, whatever it was, you know, and for me, it was like I was always kind of like the silent one who wanted to just like get ahead. You know what I mean? Like both my brothers were the best at everything. Like my younger brother was the best surfer, the best skateboard. My older brother was the best athlete. And I just remember my parents made me play all these sports and I was like, I don't really want to do any of this stuff. You know, it's like it wasn't for me. I was competitive, but I just didn't care enough. But as I got older, I kind of started to figure out that it was like that stuff didn't matter. Like I focused more on the stuff that would really, really matter. You know, like, I wanted to be like the one who made more money at that lemonade stand. You know,

it's like I knew I want to do these certain things. So I don't know, I just feel like I have a lot to prove in my feeling. But when my mom, going back to that story, when my mom said, no hairdresser makes a career out of being a hairdresser or like, you know, where do you think that's going to go? You're dropping out of college. You're giving up on all your dreams. And it was just then that I'm like, oh, I'm going to prove it wrong, you know? And it really was one of those things that's like, I love doing hair so much since I was a kid. I was obsessed with hair. Like my very first art class I ever took, the first thing I ever painted a picture of was Kim Beesinger's hair from Batman, you know, because I was like obsessed with her blonde hair.

And I was like an eight-year-old kid or whatever. The teacher was like, what the hell is he doing, you know? Can you find that painting and frame it? I need to. And Kim's my client now. So the first time Kim ever sat in my chair, when I got the call to do Kim Bay Singer's hair, I was like freaking out, like shaking. And I, I, I, I mean. so many celebrities right and blah blah blah I hate talking about being a celebrity hairdresser but it's just what I do for a living but I'm not gonna sit here and be like oh I'm not impressed by celebrity because I love celebrities I think they're amazing because celebrities are the best of what they do to be a Hollywood star like

you're the shit you know what I mean like you work your ass off talk about like have a drive you know so I like celebrities for that reason like what makes you tick how did you get to where you're at so I get excited about celebrities for that reason but when Kim came in it was like a whole other story and it was the first time or pretty much the only time in my career where I had to just like walk up to her shake her hand and just be like Kim I've got to get this out of the way before we move any further like you are the reason why I do hair color like I love you since I was a kid you know whatever and it wasn't I had to make sure I didn't do it like

in a creepy way like a stalker fan but she's I've been drawing your hair for years in a dark apartment somewhere I have pictures of you everywhere candles the whole thing no I mean I did it in the sweetest way of possible and she's the nicest person in the world And like, did she love her blonde? She did. I still do her all these years later. We text all the time. Every time her name pops up on my phone, I like like shake a little bit.

I'm like, oh my God, like Kim Beasier. She's like the emoji queen too. Her emoji game is so good. Really? Yeah, I'll show you later. How did the rest of your family and your brothers particularly react when you said you wanted to be a hairdresser or a hairstylist? That's such a good question.

What's a proper term? Hair stylist, dresser. Listen, I told you I'm going to swim a little bit in this one. No, I love it. You shouldn't know. I mean, there's a lot of things you know about that. I don't know. about but I'm a hair colorist actually so I always kind of messed that up I just say hairdresser

and then nothing bothers me but technically I'm a hair colorist because I only color hair you know master of blonde hair right so I'm a hair he's a master of blonde what if I would ever look good blonde uh maybe maybe we do a little tony thing on you Tony maybe it would look kind of cool really you know who it would look you would look like Ryan Gosling in that driving movie oh god here He's going to ask me 20 times if he should do it. Place Beyond the Pines. I have one of my business partners watch that like 75 times. That movie is intense.

But aren't I thinking of drive or is it the Beyond the Pines one? Beyond the Mines. Don't tell Michael that though because he looks in the mirror and plays with this hair more than I do. Well, he has such good hair. Yeah. He has a brush called a, we actually named his hairbrush. It's called Old Blue. He's had it since high school and I hide it when he acts up.

What's so special about the brush? I just, I don't know. I just like, no, we all have that brush. The other ones don't get it right. Oh my God. It's so true. I have that brush. What am I saying?

Like, why am I acting shocked by it? I've almost canceled plane flights to be like, listen, trips over. If it doesn't make it on the trip, you freak out. It's like, I'm like, listen, trips over.

Like, we're done. One time we got in like the biggest fight ever of our relationship. And I considered taking the hairbrush, laying it in the street, letting someone run over it and then sprinkling the pieces on his pair. That would only, that would only be a loss for you.

I leave with fear. Yeah. It'd be a loss for both of them. Yeah, like his life would be over. Okay, so how do you go from telling your mom that? Wait, I want to go back. I want to hear the reaction of the brothers. Oh, that's actually a really good question.

You know, so when I very first told my mom, to be really honest, when I said I was going to beauty school, wanted to become a hairdresser, a hair colorist, whatever, when I told my parents at the same time, I was pretty much coming out of the closet. Like, I was telling them, you know, and guess what? I'm gay. And, um, and guess what my girlfriend's pregnant. I mean, it was a really hard time for my parents. I got, I got my girlfriend pregnant.

I, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Wait, what? Let's understand the dynamics here. Wait, hold on. Before we get into this wild story, I want to shout out third love. Okay, I like my pajamas, buttery, organic, cotton, and breathable. I have been wearing third love pajamas for, like, the last five months. I especially rocked them during surgery day in and day out.

I have found that my favorite out of all of them is definitely the organic cotton jogger set, okay? It's tagless, it's comfortable, it's chic. and they have all different kinds of sizes. You got to go and check the website out. It's insane. Third Love has a few standout pluses that you should know about. Number one, they're fit. They come in half sizes and they've tested millions of women in the fit department so they know they're shit, okay? No tags, which is a real win-win for me. It feels like you're not even wearing a bra when you're wearing their bra. It's honestly trippy, you guys. I've slept in their bra. The fabric is buttery. It's soft. It feels good. There's no wires. Like no

wires poking into your boobs. It's so uncomfortable. Guys are so lucky. They don't have to deal with that. They also have A through H sizing too. That's like so badass. I think that there's a fit finder on their sites. You can find your perfect size. Also, you still feel pretty. The set, like I said, is chic. It's cute. It reminds me of what a celebrity in the 50s would wear to the Beverly Hills Hotel. You just want to like curl up and read a book in it. It screams chic. When it comes to choosing a color. I like the ballet pink, but I recently got the black and I'm kind of in love with it. I may or may not have worn a duster coat over it and went to grab coffee and a blood orange iced tea the other day. It was interesting. Anyway, I'm so into a comfy PJ moment for everyone. So right now,

Third Love is offering our listeners 15% off your first order. Just go to thirdlove.com slash skinny now to find your perfect fitting bra and definitely grab the jogger set. You get 15% off your first purchase. That's thirdlove.com slash skinny for 15% off today. You know, this would be a complete mind fuck if I was your family. I was like, listen, I'm gay. And I also have this girl pregnant because I would be like, what, you pick one of the other there, but, you know? No, it was, it was a real lot for my parents. That's why my parents, I mean, I give them so much credit now and I'm so close with them. And they were really good. But it was just, I laid a lot on them at the time. But when all of that stuff came out, the gay stuff was hard for

my family, being a Mormon family, you know, coming from the Mormon, background and my mom's immediate reaction actually was don't tell your brothers like I don't I don't want you to tell your brothers and I remember being in my head being like my brothers and I are so tight like we love each other you know like whatever and I and I What's the age difference? We're about every two years my parents had kids there's four of us My parents had four kids before they were even 30 years old so props to them like they Start having kids like I think 20 and then by 30 they had all four of us and so when my mom told me that don't tell your brothers I was like again if someone tells you not to do

something I'm gonna do it but I felt really confident about it when I told my brothers my brothers they loved it you know like I think if you're like a really cool straight guy like you're a really cool straight guy like straight guys are so comfortable with gay guys and I think they're cool you know what I mean it's like they so comfortable yeah and I think that like anyone who's weird about anyone being gay it's when you have issues you know like it's just it's just the truth you know like it's the same I'm I hate bullies more than anything but it's like I learned at such a young age like if someone's bowling you or they don't like you for some reason it has so much to do with them you know what I mean and it's like I love my brothers that my brothers were

the sweetest, kindest guys. And when I told them, they were totally, totally chill. Wait, so you got your girlfriend pregnant while all this is happening? I did. And I'm kind of messing up the timeline because my girlfriend, okay, so when I went to college. How does she feel about all this? Maybe that's the right question. I know.

Not the brothers. Maybe I'm wondering about the pregnant girlfriend. She's going to listen to this podcast. So I've got to be careful. Hey, Debbie. How are you doing, Debbie? No, we're really, really cool. Debbie, it all worked out.

Yeah, I got my high school girlfriend pregnant. she had the baby. We did an open adoption. I mean, that baby was like everyone wanted that baby. It was, you know, it's like, it was the way you look. I can imagine. She's a beautiful girl. And at the time, I think it was perfect. So we met a bunch of families. This is going down such a weird route. But we met a bunch of families who wanted to adopt. That's what the show typically does. They wanted to have a baby. When they, when they met us, we had a group of people who we got to choose from. We picked this great, great family. And I just recently, like, started talking more to my son. He's about to graduate. graduate high school now. So it's like my family and his family. Blonde. Yeah, he's blonde. He looks like me. The weird

This is crazy. Okay. So one night a couple years ago, I'm sitting on the couch just watching something stupid, you know, probably big brother. I'm watching TV with my boyfriend all these years later. And my son slides into my DMs, like writes me a direct message and says just hey. And so I like look at it and I'm like, oh, that guy's kind of good looking. I'm like, who is that? I'm like, he's a child. I'm not writing this person. I'm sitting next to my boyfriend. And I open. it up and then all of a sudden I was like, holy shit, you know, and he was like, and then he wrote, he's like, do you know who this is? So anyways, I'm being kind of silly, but this is a big moment, you know, like I immediately started crying and I was like freaked out, but it's like my high school

son is writing to me on direct message on Instagram. So we immediately start going to this whole thing. And my boyfriend's sitting there and I don't want to tell him yet, but I'm like getting so teary-eyed and whatever. And we go into this whole thing and it was, it was beautiful. I mean, just that story right there with him saying the things that he said, he's like, you know, I want to thank you for giving me the life that I have. You know, I can only imagine because he was like, you were just a little bit older than I am now when this happened to. I can't even imagine.

He's like, you made the decision to give me life and give me the family that I have now. So long story short, my family and his family, we all had dinner shortly after that. And it was just like this really, really cool, amazing thing. But yeah, he does look a lot like me. It's so weird when you see that stuff because it's like his hands are exactly like, like the forearms are the exact same, you know, the shape of his face. And then when we met, it was just like, whoa. Like I didn't raise him, but we're so much alike, you know?

And like when his mom started telling me stories about him, it's the same type of person. So it's like it really is, we are who we are, you know, even if somebody else raises us, you know. But like he's like really close to the adults. Like I was obsessed with adults when I was a kid, you know, like I used to stay at school after school and talk to all my favorite teachers and ask them questions. You know, like so you feel like you related to adults more than the kids your age? I always did. I was just one of those kids that I loved high school and I had a lot of fun. I was very involved in high school.

Like I did all the student government. I hung out with all the athletes and stuff. I just thought that was fun. I thought high school parties were the best parties I've ever been to. So I had fun, but I always wanted to grow up. I always wanted to make money. Like I really wanted to be successful. I liked asking adults how they got to where they were.

Like I've always been really curious like that. So how do you go from telling your mom that you're going to beauty school to Chris McMill and Swan? So I went to beauty school and it was one of those things. It's like I always tell people if you, If there's something that you have a passion for, chances are if you follow it and you have to, like, overcome some sort of obstacle, like you're going to be good at it. Right.

Like, I just knew if I go to beauty school, I'm going to be really good. You know, it's like when I was in beauty school, I'm like, I want to work on Jennifer Aniston, you know, like, I want to work on Kim Basinger. And now those are two of my clients, you know, so it's like, so how did I get there? I think it was just really, I work my ass off. I won't stop until I get what I want. You know what I mean? I can attest to it.

I've seen it. Yeah, like, I mean, I, this morning I'm at yoga at 5 a.m. Then I go to the gym and work out with the trainer after. And it's like, I know I need to get all the workout stuff before 7 a.m. Because it's like the day after that just keeps going. I go to bed at 8 o'clock because I want to like wake up really early. So I'm just, I've always been super, super driven. Even though it was like a 13 year old kid, I used to set my alarm wake up and go for runs before school.

You know, and it's like what kid does stuff like that? And I'm not saying that to say that I'm the shit or anything like that. It's just I think some of us we have that. It comes easy to me. So for me, it was like it was really important to be the best at what I was. So when I finished beauty school, I went and worked at, I knew I wanted to do blonde hair and I knew I wanted to be the best at it. So I did all my research at that time.

There was no social media. So it's kind of like looking at W magazine, Vogue magazine, reading about who does the best blonde hair, you know, because Allure always has. Who was it at the time? At the time, it was this guy, Art Luna. So I went and worked for Art Luna. It was this guy, Jonathan Gale. So I went and worked for Jonathan Gale.

It was this woman Sherry Escherid, who was doing like Reese Witherspoon for Legally Blonde at the time. So I went and worked for her. So I worked for all three of those people. And I went in, it was kind of shady how I did it. Because I always say assistants need to stay with the boss for a long time to really learn. But I was just like a hopper. I'm like, I'm going to take information from all these people. And I'm going to get all of these like ways of coloring hair the best way.

And then I'm going to put it all together and do my own thing. So I wouldn't work for all of them. And then I went and I convinced the hottest salon at the time. It was the Neil George Salon. I convinced them to put me on the floor. And they were so busy at the time. It was like all the hottest people worked there. Every celebrity was going there.

So they put me on floor. They gave me a shot. And it was just one of those things. It was like I was the one who would stay until midnight. You know, I'd ask for the keys saying, oh, I'm going to take clients late. I would never say no. If anyone called, I'd always fit somebody in or like, I got it. And my big break, I remember one day, it was the end of the day.

And somebody called in and said, you know, Kirsten Dunst needs to go from red to blonde, for Marie Antoinette and everyone's like I'm out you know it's five o'clock at night that's going to be till two three o'clock in the morning and I was like I'll do it like I'll stay and I had never done like a big celebrity you know so I did that and then after that like Vogue wrote an article saying this is the blonde guy to look out for and then I think from there it all kind of started happening Vogue did that for free yeah no Vogue came yeah Vogue came to me there was and at that time it was like I didn't know anything about PR you know what I mean it was just kind of like Vogue caught wind of it and I think it was this cool story of this guy who's like 23 years old or whatever I was at the time.

And he's coloring huge celebrity's hair. And so it was just, yeah, it was for free. There was no PR thing. So then you went to Chris McMillan after this. Yeah. So then I was at Neil George for a little while. I did like a few celebrities. I was doing Kirsten and Kim Basinger.

And then I started just meeting a lot of people in town and started working on other celebrities. And then Chris and I shared a bunch of clients. And at one point, Chris just came to me. He's like, why don't you just work in my salon? you know like we share so many people anyways so i went over to chris's salon and i was there for a really long time um until recently until recently um so the thing where i'm at now i have my own i have my own product line with my partner donna pollad it's called d p hugh i'm obsessed with it yeah i really like it i love that you're obsessed the purple shampoo and the apple cider when she originally

told me the concept and how you guys have been marketing yourself like that's what intrigued me the most and I wanted to kind of like see what I want to talk about every facet. I think it's so smart the way you guys have marketed that product and then also that you know Lauren goes in there she gets her and then she's sharing it to the world like I think it's just such a different way to to market hair products that hasn't been done and I want you to walk us through how you guys had this idea to curate this it's like when you walk in there it's like this community where you walk in and everyone has a great energy and and you guys have a photo shoot set up in the back with a diva light because let's be

honest, how many times have I gone to a hair salon and they want to take a picture after? And I'm like, not with this lighting, you don't. Like, no, thank you. You guys have a full setup. So I feel really confident and I want to post it on my own. We've like built the brand around social and social influencers. There's so many. And you have all your products out, but it's not like in a selly way. It's, it's in a way where you want to snap the house. And we did Instagram live together. Like, how did you guys know to curate that kind of community or almost content marketing to sell product. It for me, I'm obsessed with it as much as you are. You know, you and I had talked a little bit about it before and I'm obsessed with social media. I'm so I think that social media will never go away.

And when people try and say like, oh, Instagram is dying. I'm like, no, it's dying if people do it the wrong way. And I got to this point right before we really started doing. So we have a house that we opened up called the D.P. Hugh house. And so my brand's D.P. Hugh, we opened up this house that's just all content. I invite all these people in people who are my clients, you know, people who are influencers, all reach out to people who like, I just think are funny or interesting. and we invite them in. And I think the thing that we do differently, I've always said, we don't pay for one influencer.

So a lot of people in this town are paid for, right? So everything's like hashtag ad, hashtag sponsored. And I hate that. I think that like, I understand why it has to happen, but I was like, I just don't want to do that. I want to see if there's a way that we can do it where I can invite people in, like, like a friend, like, hey, Lauren, like, I've always wanted to do your blonde hair. Like, come in, you know, Jillian Michaels introduced us.

And I remember when Gillian started working with you, I'm like, I've always wanted to do Lauren's hair. Is there a way that you can introduce us or whatever? And it was just like all the relationships happen like that. And when somebody like you comes in, like you're a big deal. You could ask for money. You can ask like what's exactly going to happen. And what we want to do is we want people to come in.

We're like, do whatever works for your social media. We're going to give you no rules. We're not going to tell you what to write. We're not going to tell you what to talk about. We're literally just going to say come in and just create your own content. I think people who have to create content are looking for stuff to create it about, you know. So when all these girls come in, I just make real real real. real relationships with them.

And I'm like, if you love a certain product, like shout it out or talk about it. Um, if you don't, you know, say that you don't like it or it doesn't work for you. Just like leave it really, really open. And I think that that's what a lot of people have liked about us and they keep coming back. There's a lot of marketing people and brands that I used to work with that would, for consulting and say like how do we set up influencer campaigns? I feel like I should just bring you to the meeting and record what you just said. Is that's what brands need to understand when you try to micromanage the process

with someone who is a content creator. it always goes wrong. But if you let them do their thing and they love the product, it's going to be successful. I always say that I want to write a book or have a conference called Yo Brands. And I want to get all the brands together. And I want to explain as a practitioner and influencer who's been doing it for the last eight years, how to make it seamless.

Yeah. And it is seamless with you. Like Tony sets it up in a way that doesn't feel like you have to do anything. And then you come in, but you want to create the content. Yeah. What I like about it too is at the end of the day, you're an artist.

and a lot of artists get caught up in their work. And you've found this way to scale a business and also create a community. So I think you have like the whole sort of trifecta. I love that. I feel like you get it on. You and I are a lot of like. I get it on a like you should have seen my reaction to Michael, a visceral. Like I couldn't sleep for like two nights because I'm like this is how you launch a product.

Yeah. Yeah. And for me it was just one of those things like I love social media like we all do. but I really, really love it. And I like people, I like things that are authentic. And I feel like Instagram's getting so weird. Like I'm not just saying this to you because you're my friend. And I'm sitting in your podcast room right now.

But like you do things like, you share with people. You talk about things you like. You know, like you give people advice on things. You talk about products that you really like things that work for you. So like people want to follow your content. I feel like so much of Instagram is turning into all the sales stuff. You know, like I mute so many stories now. Because I'm just like, oh, God, stop with it.

You know, it's like the whole blog world. changing. You know, it's like every girl's a blogger now. Every girl is putting up an outfit photo, you know, but I want to like, I want to learn from somebody. I want to know about like your relationship. Like your guys' story is so freaking cute. Like people are invested in that. You know, like, I don't know. I just feel like there has to be a value add to whoever the audience member or consumer is. Right. Like if you're just if it's if it's a vanity plan, like look at me, me, me like that gets old. Right. But if you're you can showcase yourself and provide some type of value, whether that's like comedic relief or entertainment.

or education, like if you're providing one of those things, then usually there's a takeaway, and the person will continue to engage with their content. But if it's like, hey, look how great I look and look at this trip on what, it's like, yeah, totally. There's two things that you do, too, that I think is genius. We did an Instagram live, and you were spilling all your tips and tricks.

And so maybe there's a hairstylist in Florida who's listening or watching, and they can pick up your tips and tricks and utilize them in their own life and what he does. And I'm just going to, like, shout you out for this. he brings in someone that adores him and wants to be like him and lets them, is it called, what's it called? A shadow. And the person gets to take notes and be involved and they can go. You're like mentoring people. It's like a mentor. So my, yeah, my following on Instagram is hairdressers.

And I love hairdressers. I love the community that I'm a part of. I love what Instagram's done for the hair community now. So for me, it's like I always want to continue to give back because I love education. I think it's fun. But I always say on my Instagram, it's like if anyone wants to, if, If you're coming to LA, just reach out to us. We'll let you come into the house. You follow me around, watch how I do hair, whatever. Can my hairstylist Sean in San Diego? She's adorable.

Of course. Oh, my gosh, she'll freak out. Yeah, of course. Hey, Sean. Hey, Sean. No, totally she can. But the thing that's cool about that is, like, when I'm around them, it, like, it gets me excited. You know, I feel like the scariest thing for us is if we stop being interested, you know,

or if we stop wanting to learn or, you know, like, I don't know. It's just like, that's what keeps me. excited and young and it's like I don't want to the moment we stop doing this show is the moment we stop being interested in talking to people like there's we will let's talk like our vetting process when people like you know there's PR pitches that come like hey have this person on the show and it's like unless you're interested in having a conversation with that person it's not going to be it's not going to be totally followers you know it doesn't matter oh yeah what's the worst advice you've ever received oh my god the worst advice plot twist um I don't know if I I nothing pops out

so maybe I haven't gotten really bad advice Or you've just chosen to focus on the good advice. Yeah, I have. I really am, you know, like I, I really am one of those people. Like, I work my ass off. I work like six days a week. I never stop. But I don't focus on anything negative.

And I'm really, really good at surrounding myself with really good people. That's a big part of the DPU house. You know, to be honest, it's like as much as I love the hairdressing community, there's a weird part of the hairdresser community too. You know, there's a lot of like, there's gossip and there's jealousy and there's competitiveness. And I would work in these salons where I'm like, why are these people? people being competitive. Like I really am the type of guy. If like if all of a sudden you wanted to

try somebody else who was like a friend of mine, like I would not care. You know what I mean? And then it's let's say a year later like, hey Justin, it's Lauren. Like I want to come back in and get blonde. It's like cool. Like I'm not I'm not competitive with people about that. And there's a big part of the hairdressing community that is like that. So part of the house is I wanted to create like an environment that I could be in where everyone's just like positive. You know, anytime we have a really good team. But you know, whenever there's somebody who kind of like isn't like us, we will definitely kind of filter it out. So I'm good about like surrounding myself with with good people. So I think maybe that's where the good advice comes from. I want to talk about

hair a little bit. So what are some essential hair products that girls should use? Maybe if they have color in their hair, a lot of girls have color that are listening. Well, one of the biggest things I tell people that girls don't think about. We'll talk about blonde because you're a blonde. I do a lot of blondes. But a lot of girls don't realize that all these products that you put into your hair, they can tint your hair. So you know when you leave the salon and your your hair is like this bright, beautiful blonde, right? Then a couple weeks later, it's not as bright. And you're kind of like, what happened?

Did the hair colors mess up? We don't realize all this stuff we put in our hair starts to dole the colors. So you want to pay attention to all the colors that you put into your hair. Like my argon oil, right? Is argon oil that amazing? No, is mine that amazing? Yeah, because it's completely clear. It's really, really lightweight.

So all my blondes can put it on all the time and it's not going to dull out their blondes. Tell us about the apple cider vinegar one. The apple cider vinegar is something that I'm, like actually super, super passionate about. I just believe that we were taught from such a young age that we need to shampoo and condition our hair all the time, right? And what it ends up doing is like it messes with your scalp. Your scalp starts to get more oily or like you start to get dandruff or we're drying

our hair out. So like it's almost like if you wash your t-shirt every day, you suds it up, the material's going to break down, the color is going to fade. So I wanted to create a way, my partner and I wanted to create a way where we would clean people's hair without stripping all the good oils out of it, strip the cubs, the color out of it. So it's a way that you can clean your hair every day without stripping the good stuff out. So it's an apple cider vinegar based product. Michael, I swear. Okay, so we've had a bunch of skin experts on here and he slowly started stealing my products. My doctor Dennis Gross, my Kate

Somerville would go away. Now he has like a friggin eight step routine. So he's hearing you say this. I only needed to have like 10 hours in my shower and I can see his eyes start to glaze over about how he's going to steal that. I'm like a once every 10 days wash. time in a person. Unless it just looks like there's axle grease in my head, you know? Which is good. That's why it looks how shiny and healthy. But the thing is to like over shampooing your hair, like everyone wants shiny hair, right? That's what every hairdresser gets asked. Like, how do I make my hair shineier? Well, the thing is when you're shampooing every day, you're pulling all the good oils out of your hair. So your hair is, it's flat. It's not reflecting light

anymore. So it doesn't look shiny. So the apple side of vinegar, I swear, the more people use that all the time and your scalp kind of evens out. It stops producing so much oil and you're just washing your hair with the ACV with ACV rinse your hair. Your hair. So you're starts to get so much shine because it's the cuticle is sealed, the right amount of oil is in your hair. It still feels clean. So we're just, we're overwashing. For someone that doesn't live in L.A., how can they communicate with their stylist, what the best hair color is? Like, is there something they can say to get the best results? Should they ask for a toner? Like, give us specifics. I think that photos say everything. I think that it's really hard for me to tell women which words to use,

because I'll have a lot of clients who will sit in my chair for the first time. I'm like, I have a few photos. hairdresser hate photos and I'm like what hairdresser hates photos like I want to see because you could say I hate gold in my hair and then show me a picture what do you mean they hate photos like if someone brings in a photo yeah because sometimes they'll think like I think in their mind they think that that's almost offensive to be like here's this picture of jennifer anison's hair color I want it and it's like well then go to the guy who does her color you know but it's like it's like it's not like that you know for me it's like i want to see photos because i want to see tones you know because tattoo artists kind of do the same thing really like they like get mad if

you say like do this too oh yeah yeah totally no totally yeah um we're When I was like more in. That's how I relate to this. No, that's totally what it is. But for hair color, like for me, it's like it's the, what I've learned over the years, I've done so many women's hair color for so many years that women don't know a lot of, like we always assume as hairdresser is that people know the right words to use and they don't. And that's why I don't really want to tell people the words to use, but more just the photos.

Because it's like what you say is gold could be totally ashy to me. You know what I mean? So it's like. That's good advice. So bring an exact photo in. Yeah. What does Jennifer Aniston ask? Like give us some details there.

Jennifer, the thing that I first like to say about Jennifer all the time is that if you have any sort of idea of how you want Jennifer Aniston to be if you met her in person, she beats it by a million. And I really, like a warm hug from grandma. She really is the sweetest person on earth kind has the nicest group of friends around her at all times. Like she's just good. And I really feel like the more celebrities that I meet, I find the really good, sweet, loyal ones. are the ones that just go further in this in their industry you know and jennifer is just like a prime example of that like there's no it's there's no mystery to me why she just keeps doing movie after movie and getting all these good roles because she's just genuinely like good so with jennifer

the thing um she likes to keep it natural you know she um she wants it to look beachy sometimes i will to be honest tell her to calm down with the blonde i think that jennifer looks better like right now she's on the cover of in style magazine and she photographs really really well when she has more depth in her hair. And you did her hair. Yeah. So I think that she's really good though with like back and forth talking. She wants to hear what I what I have to say. You know, there are times like anyone though. There are times where she's like I want to be really blonde right now. You know like I'm just feeling it. You know, so there's a lot of back and forth. But I think the thing on her that I need to like pay attention to is always kind of keeping depth in her hair. That's when it looks the best.

Was there a specific celebrity that when you did when you do the hair like kind of set it set it off like it was the you did that one person you started getting a lot more clients or is that or is it just kind of been like a slow process it was kind of like a slow process but to be honest when I started doing Jennifer Aniston like a lot of stuff happened I noticed a lot of change you know when I very first started doing her years ago I remember that's when brands like I can't really name it but big brands would come to me and they wanted me to be an ambassador right every brand wants this like ambassador who does big celebrities names because then they can use all those celebrities names saying so-and-so uses this product on so and so and blah blah and that's when I really started being like I don't want to be that guy I want my own thing you know like I want you know it's like I feel like we're in this industry where like a lot of these hairdressers they'll sign on with a brand and then a couple they'll use all their clients names for a while and then a couple years later they'll move on to the next hairdresser use all those and I was like I'm not going to do that you know I want to do my own thing is it going to be a slower build is it going to be a lot harder work yeah you know than just signing like a contract with a big brand to do like a big two year deal but then it's like I wanted to like build a

something so that's really where DPU started are there people and you don't have if you don't want to name names you don't have to but other like maybe personality traits in celebrities that you won't work with even if they're you know rocks are celebrities you're just like listen I cannot work with this type of personality you know it's I'm always kind of surprised by who being diplomatic here no no I'm actually really honest about this I really feel like the interesting because people will be like oh who was really shitty for you to work with and I feel like that's unfair to say because a lot of times like maybe if I worked with

somebody one time maybe they were in a bad mood or maybe they're in a bad place in their life maybe they're going through a breakup so I never want to go around saying like oh so and so was shitty but I think that the thing that I find is like there are personality types that like I don't mesh with well and I don't take offense to that you know like Katie Perry came to me and I made her platinum with the short platinum hair you know and cool girl she's so sweet with all the people in her lifestyle her and I didn't vibe you know and it's like that didn't bother me you know it's like we were just like different I feel like maybe she thought I was too

like kind of like I don't I feel like she likes guys who are like yes queen like that whole thing and I just don't do that you know it's like I'm just not that guy so I think maybe I was it's like Scotty 100% Scotty I could say that Scottie I was in the gym the other day and Scotty screamed across the gym dad and I'm like yo dude I'm like chill out scottie well it's funny I love Scottie he is the sweetest coolest funniest guy ever but if you if you sat at a table with Scotty and we couldn't be more different. You know what I mean? And like Scotty's rad.

I'm my own version of rad, I'd like to say. But like, yeah, a lot of the times the people that Scotty would hang with or get along with, they're not going to be my kind of people. It's just different, you know? Like, I feel like I'm, I want to, like, talk deep and I want to, like, talk really deep about, like, business and success and how you got to where you're at. And nothing wrong with the other. Sometimes I, that's one of my biggest insecurities is I feel like I'm not the guy who

goes to the party and can, like, I can let it through my own way as far as, like, Like I like to party. I love beautiful women. I love chatting up with beautiful women and stuff and like just talking to them or whatever. But I've always been jealous of those people who could walk in and just be like that like big, loud personality, get everyone around them. So I've always kind of been jealous of that. But I'm just not that person. Can we get you to do Britney Spears hair?

Oh my God. Everybody asked that. It's so funny because I'm I'm obsessed with Britney Spears. I have like a crazy obsession with her. I will defend her till the end of time. I love her too. I love everything. I love everything.

But here's the thing. I really, really mean this when I say, I don't want to do her hair because I'm so nervous that it wouldn't be good. And I just don't want that to be. I know she's really, really sweet. And that's not the thing. But I don't think it's very deep. When she hears this, when she hears this, she'll provide us feedback and we'll send it away. I want to tell, we talked about Jennifer Anderson, who's more natural. Miley Cyrus is more sort of, I don't want to say erratic with her hair, but it's, changing all the time. How do you deal with a celebrity or influencer that comes in that wants to do these drastic changes. I with Miley in particular. Okay, so Miley, when she was on the bangers tour and she

was really, really platinum blonde and it was short, I would, and we laugh about this all the time. Now, I've worked with Miley for so many years. Fun fact about Miley, she lived across the street from me growing up, but I was older. So I didn't, my sister, I can't tell that story. My sister's in the room, sorry. The Cyrus has lived across the street for my family. This is actually funny. Now I want you tell that story. The Cyrus has lived across the street from my family when we were growing up, but I had gone on to college, and that's when they moved in across the street. And so my mom used to always say to Miley's mom, like, oh, my son's a hairdresser,

like, you guys have to go to my son or whatever. And Miley's mom would just be like, oh, okay, that's late. Because it was out in, like, Locking Yaut of California where it's like, I mean, cool people live out there, but it's like, it's far from Hollywood, right? So I think that Miley's mom was like, okay, this lady's son probably works down the street in like the little beauty box or whatever, you know? And so like, okay, okay, okay, whatever, never happened. Then years later, Miley came to me for me to fix her hair and we're just chatting up.

And I was like, I was like, you know what's so wild? It was like, you lived across the street from my family on Blah, Blah, Blah Street in Lachianata. And she was like, get the fuck out. She's like, is your dad Mike Anderson? And I was like, yeah. And she's like, me and all my friends had the biggest crush on your dad. My dad's really hot, but she was like, me and all my friends had the biggest crush on your dad. So it was like the same thing that she's like, wait a second.

She's like, your mom used to always tell us to go to you for hair color. And we used to always just like make this joke in the house just being like, oh, God, imagine if we just like went down the street to this like random guy or whatever. Not that a random guy couldn't be amazing. But anyways, that whole full circle story was pretty wild. You know. Her on Howard Stern. Did you watch that?

You have to watch that. She's a true talent, that one. Oh, she is actually. Holy shit. Yeah, no. Miley is the real deal. And like, Miley's one of those people again, like I would go to bat for you. You know, like if people try and talk crap about her, like, Miley is so real.

And I feel like in a world of like everyone's so being about like the PR of everything or people like trying to put out an image of who they want people to think they are. Miley is the exact opposite. And that's why I think she'll go on forever and because she's really freaking talented. Really? Yeah. Like even when she was on the voice, I was like, I was so glad people got to see that side of her. Like she knows everything about music. She performed live on the hard certain show and it was, you know, you got to imagine that's early in the morning.

There's probably like eight or nine East Coast time, which is obviously much earlier here. and she nailed it. Yeah. If someone's out there and they're listening and they want a takeaway from you of how to jumpstart their career, what would you say is sort of your recipe or formula for success? My thing really, really is, is like when you know what you want, like you've really got to go for it and you never stop, right? Any successful person that you talk to very rarely is there's something that just

happens out of nowhere. And if success happens really easily, most of the time it goes away really, really quick too. So I say that- I call that astronaut syndrome. Really? You fly to the moon and you come back and you're like, like what what else yeah yeah so for me I think it's really really hard work I think that a lot of people in my business in particular like you go and you're like ooh hair sounds fun it's gonna be easy and

fun like I'll do like quick little jobs here and there it's like but if you really want to be the best that you got to put the time in and I just say never say no you know it's just like no matter how big you think you get even with me it's like sometimes like people like oh you do all these big celebrities you have the company that you have now you're in sephora you're in oldta we're in Nordstroms you know we're in all these different places and we're growing really, really fast. And people are like, why do you still work so hard in the salon? Like, I work long hours. I'm in the salon. Like, I'm a hairdresser, you know, and like, and I'm like, because I feel like the minute I stopped doing that, it's going to take away the credibility of my

brand, you know, and it's like, I want to keep that going. I want to keep making relationships. Every week, I meet new people. You've solidified yourself as an expert in the market and you continue to do so. Yeah. And I feel like the minute that I, thank you. I appreciate that. I didn't mean like, yeah, I did. But I feel like the minute that, I feel like the minute you start to believe that and you believe the hype. That's when it starts to go away. I think there's a lot of things, you know, in this town too, I think with social media, so many of us get obsessed with numbers and all that kind of stuff. And it's like we believe these followers, you know, that we have. And it's like, there's really nothing to that unless you really put the work in and you keep going every day. And

like you were saying earlier, it's like you could have 100,000 followers or a million followers. Like the difference is, is like how relatable you are if your followers really love you. If they really like listen out, they see that you're doing the hard work. They see that you're really passionate. I think that people who follow me on social media know how passionate I am about hair. I'm so passionate about my products. Like I won't put anything out that I don't like. All the stuff that we're creating that's about to come out is insane. And I can't wait to show it to people because it's really stuff that's never been done before to take care of your hair color in between salon visits. That's what I'm all about. You know, I feel like hair colors, we have all these secrets. We don't

give to our clients. But we can kind of give them things to make their hair color look better before they come back to us. So you can't believe the hype. You can't just. There's a book. as you've been talking throughout this episode, and I don't know if you've ever read it, maybe you have. There's an author named Robert Green, who Lauren and I both love, and he wrote this book called Mastery. And if you haven't checked it out, you should check it out because it's very much in line with a lot of how you've lived your life.

But I think, like, going beyond, you know, where you currently are to the next level, it's like, it's an interesting book to check out. Robert Green is a genius, too. Really? Oh, my God. I'm so into that. I can't believe that I don't know it because I love stuff like that. Or the book called 48 Laws of Power, too.

Oh, really? He's really, really cool. You're the Instagram king, too. Like, I watch your stories and I laugh. I mean, you're really, really funny. You feel like you get takeaways. Do you have any tips for someone that's out there that wants to start any kind of business on Instagram? How would you approach it?

I think, you know, I think about my Instagram a lot. And I think for me, I think it's being authentic and, again, really trying to engage whoever your audience may be. So I feel like for me, it's really easy. If I just posted nonstop pictures of my celebrity, clients. Would my following grow? Absolutely. I'd probably have a lot more followers. You know, if I just constantly did that or I posted photos of my clients on covers of magazines and stuff. But for me, I'd rather have like a smaller really like mighty group of followers who really love me and they talk about me and whatever. So for me, I want to engage. I want people to get a feel

for me. I want people to, I think that you've just really got to be yourself. You can't count on like the celebrities or like I think the days are gone to where you're like showing off. You're like really cool. I go on amazing vacation. but a lot of them all keep kind of quiet, you know, except for one went up to Palmie and I went kind of crazy. You've got to go crazy at Palmia, though. We went to dinner last night and Lauren didn't share it for like the first time. I was like, this is nice and nice change of page.

Really? I never know what she's going to share. Like there's if I get the like a little sliver of wrong light, just like take that down. Take that. Me. Have you seen some of these angles she gets to me? Terrible. You guys are both like beautiful though, but I know, yeah, I know.

I had two glasses of red wine. Last time I'm the biggest pussy these days. What the hell's happening to me? I had night terrors all night. and I'm hung over and I literally had two glasses of wine. Yeah. Red wine, did you say? Yeah.

Red wine ruins me. Like, it's like I hit a certain age where all of a sudden I would have red wine. You kind of pass out and then an hour later you're like wide awake or you're having the weirdest dreams. Like I think it's when the sugar re-hitted. There's some sort of thing. I feel like the me eight years ago would just kick the shit out of me now. Like they were just me and just like, oh, I haven't beat the hell out of this guy. Oh my God.

Everyone always tells you that in your 20s like it's going to happen. It's like hangovers are so fricking gnarly now. If I smell alcohol, I'm hung over for a month. I did like one set. I'm done, I'm done. You and I are really similar with our strategy for Instagram because I feel like I look at every single person that's following me as an influencer. Yeah. I don't look at them as, you know, like just an audience or something.

I look at them as influencers. And when you look, I think, at your community as influencers, they go out and sort of be soldiers and influence their friends for you. That's totally true. And it's a different way to look at it because like you said, you can. you could post all these celebrities and, you know, all these vacations and look at me, look at me, me, me, me. But what does that do for you later? I don't think it's a long-term strategy.

I think it's a very, very short term. There's a lot of people that have gotten millions of followers off of it. But when you change the way you look at your audience and you think of each of them as influencers, it sort of changes the whole way you do Instagram. Totally. So like even like my sister who works with an everyday, she'll look at me and she's like, what are you doing on Instagram? Like I answer everyone's question.

I'm on the DMs like answering everything because for me all those women on there say to me and they're all funny too like I have fun with them like maybe I'm lonely at the end of the day I don't know what it is but between every client like I'm answering everything but when I talk to them they say like all of my sisters use your ACV now like or I'm a teacher and I've got like all the kids at my college talking about it like whatever like and so exactly like what you said I'm like those that spreads further you know I'm like I don't need to build up just my name alone like I want to just build my brand that's how things build and we don't know the dumbest thing is the dumbest thing is influencers do is they hope and beg to get this audience and then they get it and people interact with them and then they neglect it. Exactly. What the hell did you do that for? Wait, you want to know what? Oh, you want to know when you ask about it's such a whole thing? They think they transition into some type of celebrity

and it just bothers me. Everyone's going to abandon ship. You know what I think is the grossest thing? Mavis is going to offend some people that are friends with me. Who cares? But I feel like it's this thing that's like some people will get like this following and they think it's really cool like you have a certain amount of followers, like a ton of followers and you only follow like 50 people. And it's

It's like really out of the whole world, out of millions of people on Instagram, you're only interested in 50 people. And I think they think it's like, oh, it's going to make me look cool. Like I'm only interested in these kind of people. It's like that's not what social media is. It's all about interacting. Like people, people are lonely. People forget the word social. Yeah.

You want to engage. And it's like you're so right. It's like these people. I'll read people's comments and everyone's asking all these sweet comments or being like, where did you find blah blah? Where did you get your shirt? And it's a fashion blogger and they don't answer. Yeah. And nobody answers.

It's my fucking mind. It's like, then nobody cares about you when you're posting anything. And when you go to sell a product, no one's going to buy it. No one cares. You know what I mean? If like if I'm going to do social media, like I want to have fun with it. I want to engage with people. I've made friends out of it.

When we invite those shadows into the house to work with me, like they're cool. Like I love them. They're so much fun, whatever. Other than that, then why would I do it? And yeah, do I have my own brand and am I pushing my stuff? Yeah, but I love my stuff. You know what I mean? I stand behind it.

And it's like people know that about me. I think that's what's going to change about social media. It'll always be around, but like enough with people like getting a following and being like, oh, now I'm so cool. And you can't answer a comment or a DM. I mean, what I've done is, is I spend a half an hour in the morning responding to DMs. And then I'll spend an hour at night returning DMs. And that is seven days a week.

And I've done that for the last eight years. I'll continue to do it because without my audience, without your, like, there's no platform. Exactly. It's the effort. Like, I mean, obviously like as platforms grow, there's going to be a point where, you maybe can't respond to everyone, so it's not possible to individually. But as long as like the intentions there and you let the audience know like, hey, I'm trying my best to get as many responses out.

Like people respect that. If I see a question that everyone's asking, you say, oh, guys, like some of you are asking me where I got this shirt, like it's from here. Answer the question collectively at least. Yeah. My message to those people that aren't doing that is like, you know, kiss your career, goodbye. It's only going to last for so long and people are going to abandon ship.

It's only to the detriment of their personal brand. Yeah. Before we go, what is a book, a resource, a podcast? that has inspired you that you think will inspire someone else that's listening. For me, you know, it's like I love all that. I love Tony Robbins. I love Gary, what's his name? I normally know it's on Instagram.

Gary, Gary, Gary, Be. Yeah, Gary, B. Yeah, but his, like, I love all that kind of stuff. But books for me, I always read more like money books, you know. I feel like for me, I bought my first place when I was like 23 years old when I very first started doing hair color. I remember when my mom was like, okay, if this is really what you're going to do, then you're going to buy.

a condo because every 23-year-old hairdresser who's making a shitload of tips, you know, they leave and they're like, hey, happy hours on me and they're buying for everyone. Then all of a sudden you're 50 and you're like, where'd all my money go? So for me, my mom's like, take all that money that you're making right now and put it in like I've just bought my third place in West Hollywood. You know, I collect places and I'll rent them out or whatever, fix them up whatever. And I think, so for me, it's always money books. But the one that I read was rich dad, poor dad. Have you guys read that? It's fucking badass. I want to have him on the podcast though. It's a purple book. Yeah. He's a purple book. Yeah. He's a purple book. Yeah. He's so. He's a purple book. He's so. He's a purple book. He's a purple book. He's a purple book. So rad and his whole thing is like it's so simple. It's just literally like we live in this society where we all think the more money we make the more we should spend, right? Which is like that's the quickest way to be in debt or to be like owing everything all the time. So he's saying live way below your means and like spend on things that are going to pay back later. Like I feel like hairdressers are so like oh all of a sudden I'm making. I'm going to drive a Mercedes now. It's like no, what about putting that extra money into bank? So his whole thing is like buy a place. Don't buy a new place until that old place can pay for the new place's mortgage. So he just kind of taught me how to buy real estate talking about literally tells you when you can afford to buy a nice car. I love a nice car, but I didn't start getting cars until it fit into my budget until like part of what I bought before was paying for new stuff now. So stuff like that. Also, yeah. We got to get him on the podcast.

He's so amazing. That book is so good. There's an article you would both like. It's just a quick read. It's called a thousand true fans. And it's basically like if you can, in any business, if you can cultivate a thousand true. true fans that'll spend like maybe a hundred to a thousand dollars a year with you with whatever business you have a hundred thousand or a million dollar business and like people don't understand

like if you break it down like that you don't need to reach everybody you just need to get those thousand people. Totally. Because who gives a shit about a million people when four people are engaging with you? Exactly. And you look at that you look at the numbers. It all makes sense. You know, you can have a big falling but nobody really cares about you. You know what I mean? It's like. It's nuts. It's nuts. Yeah. So before you go, I want you to pimp yourself out and I also want you to tell us about your new D.P. Hugh house because you have a new house since the one I came to, right? Yeah. So the one that you came to, we had this adorable little like bungalow type situation in West Hollywood. It was so cute. It did so much for us as a brand. We opened that space up. We

invited all these cool influencers and celebrities. And then what they do is to their millions of followers, they shout out D.P. Hugh and we would see our sales go up at Sephora. We'd see our sales go up at Ulta and all that kind of stuff. You know, and it wasn't just about me anymore. It was just like, okay, let all these people with these huge followings talk about my brands to their followers, whatever. So we had that. It worked really, really well for us. Without giving specifics, our numbers grew really, really fast in the first year. So it was just, we beat all of our goals. And so it was like, why don't we do like a bigger version of the D.P. Hugh House? So we opened this amazing house, like up in the Beverly Hills Hills, like above the Beverly Hills Hotel.

It's beautiful, amazing view, pool, the whole situation. And so we just do a bigger version of the D.P. Hugh House. And it goes back to that thing. I mean, we have girls in there, like Ashley Tisdale, 10 million followers on Instagram. She's in there every week now. She's been on this show. Oh, really? She's so cool. She's the nicest girl.

But she's in the house every day. So now all these girls are coming in. They just want to hang out at the D.P. Who house? They can sit by the pool. They can get a blowout done. Be careful saying that to me. Oh, my God.

We would die here up there seven days a week, Tony. Yeah. So yeah, we have the new house now. It's really, really cool. And like I said, all of our products are in Sephora, Ulta. They're on Nordstrom now, Durham Store. our website, DPPHugh.com. We're on Revolve now.

We just started with Revolve. And then, yeah. Instagram handles? So it's D.P. Hugh is the product, Instagram. And then mine is Justin Anderson color. And then my regular one's just Justin Anderson where I just do whatever I want. You guys follow him on Instagram because he's hysterical. And if you're going to start with the product, I would start and tell me if I'm wrong with

the apple cider or the purple shampoo. Yeah. If you're a blonde, do the purple shampoo. If you're a brunette, do the blue shampoo. Okay. It's the cool brunette because blue counteracts red, which most brunettes deal with is more red tones coming up in their hair. And then the purple counteracts yellow, which blondes do is because it's opposite on the color's wheel. That's so genius, though.

I don't think I've ever even heard of blue shampoo. Yeah, so the blue counteracts red. So every brunette who colors their hair is like, oh, my color always turns kind of reddish. So they want to get rid of the red tones. So we have a blue shampoo that counteracts the red. And it really does work. If you want like that shiny, cool tone brunette, use the blue shampoo. Justin, you were an amazing guest.

If you don't get a podcast, I'm going to die. Thank you so much for coming on. Of course. I've learned a lot. I actually feel bad. I keep looking over and like checking him. I'm like, this is the hardest thing for him to sit through.

No, no, you know, we've had a lot of crazy. I always find like you're an interesting person. So if it's, you know, I'm always interested in,

like if I have another business expert that tells me about social media, like might not be that interesting. But this is new to me. So it's interesting. Okay. Do not steal my shampoo. Yeah.

We're going to send him a lot, please. I have to use the blue shampoo, Lauren. No, because your hair's not colored. So I think the apple cider, right? Everybody should use an apple cider vinegar. It's going to be a little bit different at first, our rinse, but start to replace your shampoo every once in a while. And I swear, like, guys especially, like, if I get my hair actually shampooed now, I hate

it. It feels fluffy. It's like, I don't know. So I think Apple cider vignor, once you become a fan, you become addicted to it. Uh-oh. Great. You're going to steal all over products. Thank you for coming on.

Of course. Thank you, guys. Wait, guys, before you go, Justin Anderson has offered you a code, a good code, okay? Use skinny hue for $10 off dpehew.com. I would really, really recommend picking up the apple cider vinegar hair rinse. It's insane, okay? I can't even tell you how obsessed I am with it. In fact, it's so good that we're going to do a giveaway on it. All you have to do is go tell Justin and I, your favorite part of this episode,

on my latest Instagram and five of you will win, okay? That's apple cider vinegar hair rinse. It's like instead of shampoo, it's so good if you don't like washing your hair like me. If you want to pick up the rest of his products, I highly recommend getting the dry shampoo. It doesn't leave that white residue. Just go to D-P-Hugh.com. That's D-P-H-U-E.com and use the code SkinnyH-I-N-N-Y for $10 off. This episode was brought to you by Thrive Market. Thrive Market is your one-stop shop for high-end,

high-quality, and highly discounted groceries, supplements, beauty supplies, beauty products, and household supplies. Thrive Market guarantees its customers 25 to 50 percent below retail on all items because it cuts out the middleman. Thrive Market is offering all skinny confidential, him and her listeners, 25% off your first order and free shipping with a one-month trial when you go to Thrivemarket.com slash skinny. Again, that's thrivemarket.com slash skinny. Happy shopping, everyone, and we will be back next week. This episode is brought to you by Third Love. When it comes to bras and pajamas, I like to check my boxes, you know? I don't ask for much. I like the perfect fit, a lot of sizes, quality, convenience, and I'm very much not a mall person. So enter Third Love. I'm obsessed,

okay, you guys? And they're offering our listeners 15% off your first order. Definitely get the organic jogger set. I like it in black right now. So go to thirdlove.com slash skinny and get 15% off your first purchase. Make sure you guys use the code. That's thirdlove.com slash skinny for 15% off today.