GIVING BACK
by Charlotte Kovalchuk • photos courtesy Mandi Christopher
Rooted in Community New Heaven and Hair Salon Supports JISD Students
As the owner of newly opened but already beloved Heaven and Hair Salon, Mandi Christopher enjoys retelling how she started out in the beauty industry. “I gave buzz cuts in my trailer park at 9 years old. I stole my dad’s Walmart Wahl clippers and started shaving hair,” she says, laughing. Despite a teen pregnancy that delayed her cosmetology dream, she graduated three days before delivering a healthy little girl. “Being a teen mom, I knew I needed to do something to provide a better life than what I had,” she says.
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riginally from Fort Worth, Mandi has worked for corporate and franchise hair salons in 15 states, even traveling as far as New Zealand, before returning to Texas when her husband got a job in Austin. While she had always dreamed of living in Austin, she found Jarrell to be a fitting complement to her desire for a more slow-paced lifestyle. She worked at a salon in Jarrell but after “20 years of working for the man, I just decided
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F E B R UA R Y 2024 M Y JA R R ELL M O NT HLY
it was time. I wanted to create a space that was beneficial for the stylists and providers but also beneficial for the owner as well.” She opened Heaven and Hair Salon January 1 in Cougar Plaza, saying she enjoys being in a busy plaza right off I-35 in a fast-growing community. “With the expansion coming, I figured it was the perfect time to get in with Jarrell growing as quickly as it is.”
