CHARMAINE GOODLOW OF Charmaines Beauty Bar is shown styling the hair of her 17-year-old son, David Williams. Goodlow helped create and will be the instructor of Northern Michigan University’s new Natural Hair Cultivation program. (Jim Paul/Daily News photo)

IRON MOUNTAIN — A local business owner has been hired to help establish a new program for Northern Michigan University’s cosmetology department.

Charmaine Goodlow of Charmaines Beauty Bar will teach a class in Natural Hair Cultivation, starting with the fall semester.

This next chapter in Goodlow’s career was first set in motion in July 2022, when she had several cancellations at her business and decided to take a trip to Marquette.

While in Marquette, she wanted to look into becoming an instructor in NMU’s cosmetology department. Before Goodlow could even hand over her resume, the department head, Denise Hudson, asked if she might be interested in helping start a Natural Hair Cultivation program.

Natural hair cultivation is “learning to care for natural hair using techniques that put tension on hair strands, such as twisting, wrapping, weaving, extending, locking, plaiting or braiding by hand, or creating a hair system through wig construction.”

Goodlow said natural hair is kinky or wavy and caring for it requires a different skillset. Very few schools have a natural hair cultivation program — she knows of only one other school in Michigan and it is downstate.

“It is a whole different ball game coloring it, cutting it or caring for it, and the education just does not exist,” Goodlow said. “I have a lot of clients that are biracial, and they have biracial children and they don’t know how to care for their hair, so I have to teach them.”

A licensed cosmetologist for 17 years, Goodlow has operated Charmaines Beauty Bar at 415 S. Stephenson Ave. Suite 4 in Iron Mountain for four years.

Originally from Jackson, Tenn., Goodlow moved to Milwaukee as a pregnant teen and was able to finish high school.

She briefly studied nursing before switching to cosmetology. It was like going into the family business, she said, as both her mother and grandmother were hair stylists.

“Our house and our kitchen was the salon. We had waiting chairs by the deep freezer and we had a dryer chair by the refrigerator and I would come home from school and it smelled like burnt hair and pizza,” Goodlow said. “Coming home every day and just seeing my mom work — and I would help her a lot — and just the transformation, you see people come in and they just drag through the door and a couple of hours later their face is just brighter and happier and I just love that.”

Goodlow overcame the challenges of being a single mother and attended Aveda Institute in Milwaukee, eventually finishing at Empire Beauty School in Franklin, Wis., in 2006.

After graduation, Goodlow became a color specialist and then moved to non-surgical hair replacement, working with physicians to serve cancer patients.

In time, Goodlow would become licensed in hair extensions, management and as an instructor.

A friend from the Iron Mountain area convinced her to move here six years ago, saying it was a safe place for her family and her services would be in demand. Goodlow has two children — David Williams, now 17; and Kaliyah Kincaid, now 20.

For her first two years here, Goodlow was in the SmartStyle Salon inside Walmart, where she said she built a large clientele within a short time. Those customers convinced her to open a salon of her own and Charmaines Beauty Bar was born in downtown Iron Mountain.

Business has been strong, she said, and she frequently is booked out weeks in advance. She does not like to turn away potential clients, she added, since in the region several of her services can be found only at her shop.

But she hopes that will change with the NMU program.

Goodlow was offered the opportunity to help build the program from the ground up; however, she was not licensed to teach in Michigan and her Wisconsin instructor’s license would not automatically transfer to Michigan.

So she had to go back to school for a semester. Goodlow was given a scholarship to get her instructor’s license and began taking courses in January, at the same time working with the school to develop the new program and also teaching in the regular cosmetology program.

Goodlow will welcome her first Natural Hair Cultivation students this fall semester. The class is full, with a waiting list, she said, adding that students will be coming from as far away as New York and Tennessee.

But Goodlow will not abandon her local clients, still operating her salon on weekends and during school breaks. She hopes to eventually train a motivated individual to help her so she won’t be spread too thin.

By becoming an instructor, Goodlow has a goal to improve diversity in the region.

“It has been well overdue. Whether we like it or not, this area is changing. We have people moving in from all over and I just want to educate. I want this education to go around the current hair stylists in our area and to just provide that education for the parents and the grandparents that have these children at home, because it’s really not easy to care for this type of hair,” Goodlow said.