The International Beauty Show-New York 2025 was three full days of nonstop tips, advice, and wisdom, all geared toward today’s beauty and grooming pros and the ever-evolving industry.
Hundreds of educators and panelists had worthwhile things to share to the thousands of beauty, barber, and spa professionals who came eager to soak up knowledge. Here are just a few of their insights.
Presley Poe: A great consultation separates the technical from the emotional.
As part of her “Interactive Cutting: A Fundamental Guide to Cutting” class, educator Presley Poe pulled up an audience member for an impromptu haircut and, of course, a consultation.
As they spoke, Poe wrote on a white board some key words the client had uttered: layers, voluminous, maintain length, U-shape, face framing.
“This is your consult,” she told the class, tapping on the list of words. “The adjectives the client says? The words people use to describe their hair? Just write them down.
“What’s going to happen is, they’re going to give you a life story. The story tells you how to hold space for them. If they’ve had a really hard time, that tells you how to treat them. The adjectives tell you what to do.
“But often, we’re being ruled by the story,” Poe said. “Not the things they want. And then we’re going ugh, they’ve had a really hard time, I just wanted to do a good job. Then you should’ve listened to what they asked for.
“We use our tools to do that. We use our energy to hold that space.”
Sean Casey: Make room for cleanup in your service time window.
The Florida barber educator and entrepreneur brought the same practical wisdom to New York that he imparts in his Ft. Myers barber school, The Sean Casey Academy.
He was teaching a big one in the Hattori Hanzo classroom on the show floor: How to condense an excellent haircut into 30 minutes.
“I don’t rush through a real client, but I can still get it done in 30 minutes,” Casey said. “I want to see the shape of the haircut and I can get that done in 10 to 15 minutes.
“After that, I spend about five minutes refining the haircut, creating the texture, drying it, styling it. After that I spend another five minutes cleaning up my station, closing out my service, selling them backbar, and rebooking.
“All within 30 minutes and setting up a nice clean station for my next client to come into.”
Casey said one of the biggest problems he sees among barbers is “we are lazy.”
“There are a lot of nasty barbers,” he said. “In my school I express the importance of this. Imagine going to eat at a restaurant, and the food can taste great but if it smells funny or something’s dirty, you’re not going to go eat there again. There are too many options.
“YOU are an option. Someone is paying for their choice to come see you or not.”
Nina Tulio: Lean into fearlessness for salon success.
Salon coach and educator Nina Tulio knows a thing or two about navigating the highs and lows of salon ownership — and she’s not afraid to get real about it.
Tulio spoke of a sticky scenario faced all too often by salon owners: when a top-performing stylist leaves. Shifting from fear to confidence is what can completely transform the outcome in that situation, she says.
“Yes, it’s hard when someone leaves,” Tulio admits. “But clients will follow who they trust, and if you’ve built real relationships, they may stay.”
Her approach? Transparency. She’d notify clients, offer support, and keep the door open. “Some left,” she said, “but a lot came back.”
Instead of clinging to fear or control, Nina encouraged salon owners to build confidence from within: through clinging to core values, clarity, and structure while making space for flexibility.
“The confident salon owner leads with integrity, serves their team, but also sets boundaries,” she says.
For those struggling with retention or facing toxic dynamics, Tulio offers a hard truth: the clearer you are about your brand and culture, the more your team will either rise with you — or quietly slip away.
And that’s okay.
“If you’re unclear, your team will be too,” Tulio says. “And if you’re not leading, someone else will — usually the loudest person in the room.”
Nikki Brown: AI is your assistant, not your leader.
Nikki Brown, General Manager of Imaginal Marketing Group, encouraged salon and spa owners to extend their leadership into the digital world by using smart AI tools — not to replace human insight, but to enhance it.
During the "2025 Beauty Business Seminar," Brown noted that SEO plugins and platforms like ChatGPT can be extremely helpful with tasks such as streamlining back-end operations and generating ideas for marketing efforts.
But AI should take a backseat when it comes to tasks that require an intimate knowledge of clients and team — such as creating advertising audiences or recruitment content.
“You are smarter than any tool out there when it comes to your brand, your tone, and your customer base,” Brown said.
Sam the Barber: Doing your own thing can have awesome results.
During a barbering demonstration on the Glam & Go Stage, the barber educator and Booksy brand ambassador was advising the crowd how to catch the attention of big brands they're interested in representing. One big requirement: You need a social media following.
“When I was first teaching barber school, I would always post content. But you know how everybody posts the same type of content? I was doing the same," Sam said. "Teaching, doing shows, doing classes, and I’d have a videographer record me. I wasn’t going viral.
“I am in Miami, so I teach a lot in Spanish,” Sam said. “Every time I’d start speaking in Spanish, the videographer would put the camera down. One day I thought about it and asked him to keep recording and to put subtitles on my video.
“That first video I did in Spanish went completely viral,” Sam said. “I hit a different market. That’s when my followers spiked up and that’s when Booksy recognized me.
"So it’s important for you all to understand that everybody tries to go in one lane. So instead of trying to do what other people are doing, create your own lane — and then you have no competition.”
Kell Grace: Build Yourself Up to Working Fast.
The stylist who has built a thriving brand on fast, Pinterest-worthy updos is, not surprisingly, a fan of speed. But not at the expense of quality, she cautioned her “5 Minute Updos with Kell Grace” class.
“You want to wow those clients. And if it only takes you 10 to 15 minutes, they’re going to tell everyone to go to you because they’re fast. We get booked because we’re fast,” Grace said.
“I’ve had stylists ask me, Can I really still charge the same rate even though I’m working so fast? And to that I say: Overnight shipping. People do pay for speed. So you actually could charge more because you’re fast.
“But you have to master it. If you’re doing it fast, and it’s sloppy and it doesn’t hold, then you can’t be fast. I would rather you do a slower updo, mastered, and work your time down from there,” Grace said.
“Take 5 to 10 minutes on prep, 5 minutes on the updo, cleanup for a few minutes. You can do a 30-minute updo beautifully.
“Do two updos on the hour, golden. If you can do three, even better. If you have an assistant who can prep for you, you can knock out those updos in about 10 minutes.”
Rodney Barnett: Don't flood the market with sameness.
Trichologist Rodney Barnett offered candid advice for beauty pros and entrepreneurs looking to break into the product space: start with a smart idea — and make sure there’s a real need for it.
“Why come out with another makeup line if there’s not a true demand?” Barnett emphasized that too many brands simply duplicate what’s already out there.
And when it comes to retail? Shelf space is premium real estate. “If a product doesn’t move within six months,” he recalled learning from retail giant Sam Walton, “it’s out.”
The takeaway: if you’re creating or selling something, make sure it’s truly needed.
Bonnie Bonadeo: Lead with intention, clarity, and compassion.
Bonnie Bonadeo didn’t hold back when recounting her experience with toxic leadership.
“The owner was too much drama ... favoritism, lack of leadership, bullying. I felt underpaid."
Her message hit home with many in the room who had either witnessed or experienced similar environments. But Bonnie’s takeaway was a hopeful one: “There is a better way” — starting with self-awareness.
It's not just about walking into a salon and giving orders. “You don’t want to walk into the room and bring chaos,” Bonadeo says. “Your presence sets the tone.”
Joel Torres: When to cut wet, when to cut dry.
The barber educator, who came to the show as part of Live Fashion Hair, was taking questions from the crowd while doing a demo on the Glam & Go Stage. Someone asked, “do you prefer dry cutting or wet cutting?”
The answer: It depends.
“I only have 15 more minutes, so I’m doing dry cutting today because of timing,” Torres said. “But if I have a client that I’m going to be doing color before, I like to design the color based on the shape of the haircut. So I do the cut first, I rough cut, I construct the shape.
“I do the color, and then I deconstruct the texture when I dry the hair. And then that way I don’t waste money on product,” he said.
“I do about 70 percent of cutting on wet hair, 30 percent on dry hair. Why? Because wet hair shows you the texture, dry hair shows you the density. And those points are very important. You want to remove density, then dry hair is better,” Torres said.
“You know how people come into the salon and their hair is super straight, and you wash it and it’s really curly? Wet hair don’t lie.”
Timothy Belcher: Meet people where they are.
After four decades in the beauty industry, salon owner and business coach Timothy Belcher has developed a fitting motto for salon owners navigating an industry constantly in flux: “Some days you win, some days you … learn."
“In the first 20 years, I made every mistake you could think of,” Belcher admitted. “The next 10, I read every book, joined every group ... and the five after that? It all clicked. Then COVID hit.”
The pandemic forced Belcher to pivot again. Many of his team left to be closer to family, and he faced a client surge with no service providers. The solution? A full-on recruitment and training strategy, focusing on Gen Z.
“Gone are the days of waiting for applicants,” he said. “We’re in schools, educating and inspiring the next generation.”
Belcher's leadership mantra is to meet people where they are. “The only difference with this new generation is that they demand what they want,” he said.
“We just suffered in silence. They’re asking for better. And that’s not a bad thing.”
Monaè Everett: Chasing clout is NOT how you land high-profile clients.
Celebrity stylist Monaè Everett has prepped big-name clients (think Hailey Kilgore, Mariah Carey, Usher, Serena Williams) for the Met Gala, Grammy Awards, and other big-deal red carpets and performances.
She has about 20 years under her belt styling models for top designers at New York Fashion Week. She's been backstage putting the finishing touches on people about to go perform for an audience of millions.
And despite what a lot of people think, landing bougie gigs like that has nothing to do with clout chasing. It has everything to do with professionalism, preparedness, and making industry connections, she told the stylists taking her class, "Become the Go-To Beauty Pro for High-Paying, High-Profile Gigs."
"No matter how talented you are or how good you are, you need to humble yourself every day," she said.
“Doing good hair is only half the job. It’s about relationships, organization, and having your business in order.”
Everett dropped gems on how to stop giving away work for free, how to get the attention of agents and brands, and why assistants need to follow direction even when they're positive they know better.
“This job is hard,” she said plainly. “But which hard do you want? The hard where you’re booked and building? Or the hard where you’re burnt out and broke?”