A Head For Style: Cosmetologist becomes NWA fashion influencer

Shae Canaday, owner of The Brushed Beauty Co., does a client’s makeup. Canaday has owned and operated Brushed Beauty since 2017, emerging in Fayetteville as a wedding specialist.

(Courtey Photo/Charlesia Cooke)
Shae Canaday, owner of The Brushed Beauty Co., does a client’s makeup. Canaday has owned and operated Brushed Beauty since 2017, emerging in Fayetteville as a wedding specialist. (Courtey Photo/Charlesia Cooke)

It was a fall day in 2019, and Shakayla "Shae" Canaday had just finished doing all the hair and makeup for a bridal reveal. The suspense set in as she wondered if the bride would be satisfied with her work.

"That year, I was deciding whether I wanted to walk away from weddings altogether," Canaday recalls.

Then, the bride-to-be walked in, and a sense of awe swept over the room. Her mother and bridesmaids struggled to hold back tears. "This is what I was put on this Earth to do," Canaday thought to herself as she began to well up.

"It was a truly magical moment," Canaday says. "I couldn't walk away from special moments like that."

Helping clients craft beautiful bridal reveals is just one of many things Canaday loves about her job, she says. The 26-year-old native of Russellville is the founder of The Brushed Beauty Co., located on College Avenue in Fayetteville. She prides herself on accentuating her clients' natural beauty and serving as a multicultural makeup artist.

"Women want to feel beautiful," Canaday asserts. "It's a part of self-care for us to get our hair done, get our makeup done, nails done. So beauty services are super important for us to just give ourselves a little bit of love and care."

Canaday realized the importance of beauty services in 2013, as a student at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro, where very few people knew how to take care of Black clients, she says.

"While I was at school, I was having a really hard time finding someone to do my hair," Canaday shares. "I just started YouTubing videos on how to do my own hair and found that I liked it."

Tanya Castella, owner and lead planner of Social Icing Weddings, says Canaday's creativity and vision make her a valuable asset to Northwest Arkansas' fashion scene. But she is even more so as one of few Black women in the industry.

"That role model of a powerful Black woman, owning her own business, and creating the content that she wants to create and advocating for others at the same time," Castella says. "Especially where we live, I feel like the Black community is very underrepresented."

Canaday's affinity for fashion and beauty only grew after she began styling her own hair. After getting married in 2014, she moved to Fayetteville to start cosmetology school. By day, she worked behind the Sephora counter at JCPenney. By night, she honed her craft as a student at Paul Mitchell: The School.

"She was always kind, naturally gifted and somewhat reserved," shares Lauren Treat, a hairstylist at ALCHEMIA Art of Beauty and a classmate of Canaday's. "After school, I moved away from Northwest Arkansas, but I kept up with Shae. I excitedly watched her career explode."

As word of Canaday's talent started to spread, so did her reach as a cosmetologist. She won a Beacon Award, a national honor recognizing outstanding beauty students, which afforded her the opportunity to attend the North American Hairstyling Awards in Las Vegas.

Her career turning point came in 2017, when she used her last check from a job as a front desk receptionist to launch her own cosmetology studio, Brushed Beauty.

"I actually started my business when I was six months pregnant with my first daughter," she reveals. "I was working a dead-end job, and I was just thinking there one day, like, 'If not now, then when?'"

Pulling together every penny she had, Canaday registered her business as a limited liability company, or LLC, and everything began to fall into place. Her work was published in magazines including Vogue Italia, Amber, National Geographic and Arkansas Bride.

In 2018, Black Lives Matter movement co-founder Patrisse Cullors gave a lecture at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, and Sara Segerlin, the museum's head of community programs, hired Canaday to do her makeup.

"Shae was wonderful to work with," Segerlin says. "She was available under very short notice, which also made Patrisse's day because she needed to find a stylist in our area."

Just a few weeks later, Canaday was invited to work at the Bentonville Film Festival, where she was paired with Stephanie Beatriz, who plays Detective Rosa Diaz on the popular NBC sitcom "Brooklyn Nine-Nine."

"It just was one of those opportunities that kind of fell in my lap," Canaday remembers. "I just was like, 'Yeah, sure, I'll do it.' I didn't even know who was going to be there."

Canaday had made connections that afforded her such opportunities by working styled shoots, or mock weddings. They helped her expand her network and build a portfolio, she says, but did not generate any income.

"I did a lot of the free work in the beginning, and I think that word just got around that I would be willing to work for those types of things," she supposes. "But also those people I networked with would send me business, so it did work out in the end."

Since finishing her organizational leadership degree at the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith, Canaday has taken on more creative projects, like designing and photographing her own concept shoots, which are creative sessions meant to show off her capabilities. Her creativity has not gone unnoticed by her colleagues.

"Shae is a visionary," Treat enthuses. "She thinks big. Bigger than what everyone else is doing in our area."

Canaday says one of her favorite parts about her role in the beauty industry is being "the plug." Having reaped the benefits of networking herself, it is important to connect up-and-coming models, for example, to the right photographers, she explains.

"That kind of gives them that avenue into that part of the industry, so I guess just connecting people is how I bring impact," she says. "I know there are lots of people who really want to create a good fashion base here, and we do have the talent here, but maybe we just don't know where to turn. Hopefully I can be the pioneer for that in this area."

As Canaday continues to build her local fashion repertoire, she hopes to move to Phoenix in the next couple years to pursue bigger goals.

"I am super interested in publications and magazine work, and unfortunately there isn't a lot of opportunity for fashion and editorial work in this area," she admits.

Until then, Canaday will remain a cutting-edge player in the area, Treat assures.

"She's ahead of photography trends, makeup looks and hairstyling concepts. She has a modern taste that is difficult to find in Northwest Arkansas. She's the closest thing to a 'big city' hair and makeup artist that you will find in our corner of the state."

Canaday

(Courtesy Photo/Christine Johnson)
Canaday (Courtesy Photo/Christine Johnson)
NWA Democrat-Gazette/BEN GOFF @NWABENGOFF
Geena Davis and Stephanie Beatriz act in a scene from 'MASH' Saturday, May 5, 2018, during the Bentonville Film Festival 'Geena & Friends' panel at Record in downtown Bentonville. The popular portion of the festival reverses gender roles as female panelists read scenes from popular films will mostly male casts.
NWA Democrat-Gazette/BEN GOFF @NWABENGOFF Geena Davis and Stephanie Beatriz act in a scene from 'MASH' Saturday, May 5, 2018, during the Bentonville Film Festival 'Geena & Friends' panel at Record in downtown Bentonville. The popular portion of the festival reverses gender roles as female panelists read scenes from popular films will mostly male casts.

Upcoming Events