Piersten Gaines was never a hairstylist, but after enough salon horror stories, she decided to do something about it.
“I actually went completely bald a couple of times,” Gaines says. “And it happened at salons, people just didn’t know how to care for my hair.”
Pressed Roots is “a haven for your hair.” Specializing in textured hair, the salon is all about 4C, 3A, fine loops and tight curls. The team learns, nourishes and presses tresses to perfection in a thoughtfully cultivated space.
Gaines thought she was alone in her experience until she got to college, where she found that a lot of women who have textured hair face the same struggles.
“About 50% of women who have textured hair experience hair loss at some point in their life,” Gaines says. “There’s just not a lot of education in cosmetology school around textured hair.”
In business school, Gaines learned about different blowout bar concepts and thought about how some people can walk into a salon and trust somebody to do their hair, because she had never had that.
“I was learning a lot about people starting businesses, and the businesses that we see were created by people who saw an opportunity and saw that there was something missing,” she says. “They saw that there was a problem they wanted to solve.”
She started with pop-ups during business school to see if the concept was something that people would actually pay for and if she could bring it to life. The pop-ups lasted for about two years until she was able to open the first Pressed Roots location in Oak Cliff.
“Every time we did a pop-up, it was sold out,” Gaines says. “I was trying to test the model, but also raise money to open a store, and it was hard.”
Pressed Roots’ interior features a posh aesthetic with muted tones of pink and brown. The decor is feminine, with rounded edges and natural materials.
Working at Pressed Roots comes with an abundance of training, because Gaines is determined to get it right.
“Training is a huge component of our business, and that’s what sets us apart,” Gaines says. “We do a very intense training for people. Before anyone serves a Pressed Roots guest, they go through an intensive boot camp at Pressed Roots where they learn everything about textured hair.”
From learning about different textures, what products to use, how much heat and how much tension to use, Pressed Roots employees can only get on the floor if they know everything there is to know about textured hair.
Employees also get continued education throughout their time at Pressed Roots.
The salon offers several different services including a signature silk blowout, a hydrating spa package, a mini press, a private press and an express smoothing treatment.
After initially opening a location in Oak Cliff, Pressed Roots has expanded to Arlington, Houston and Plano.
“We’re providing something that, the accessibility, the quality hasn’t existed before for this demographic, and it’s really exciting,” Gaines says. “Everybody needs this. This needs to be everywhere. That’s what drives me is we’re getting DMs or emails every day, like, we really need you in this city. We really need you in Denver. We really need you in Seattle. We really need you in New York.”
For Gaines, seeing the joy on her customer’s faces is the most rewarding part of her job.
“After you get your hair done, you just feel like a new person. You feel like you can take on the world. You have a new pep in your step,” Gaines says. “We opened the first location in 2020 and still, every time I see a customer after their appointment and they look in the mirror and they just look happy, that never gets old.”
