At a hair salon in Australia, as part of the “Give Back Movement,” a son nominated his mother for a surprise hair makeover—leaving her in tears.
Melissa Proietti, 34, is a hairdresser in Brisbane who runs her hair salon, Jayne & Co., and her hair extension company, Baciami Hair Extension, with a team of eight employees.
Give Back Movement
Recently Ms. Proietti began reflecting on her 19-year career as a hairdresser.Ms. Proietti told the Epoch Times: “Being in customer service, you deal with a lot of judgment and competition between salons. I was getting to the point where I was not feeling fulfilled anymore with just being behind a computer and running the business. We obviously need to be on social media for our salon, and we didn’t want to make fake content for the internet. We were not interested in trying to pretend for social media, so I sat down, and I had to think about what it is that I, in particular, love doing and why I started doing it.”
She soon realized that she enjoyed helping people and was never worried about competing with others.
“I decided that I needed to go back to my roots in work and in life. I also wanted to do something for people that couldn’t necessarily afford it [but] would really appreciate it,” Ms. Proietti said.
With this realization, Ms. Proietti decided to start the “Give Back Movement,” a program that aligns with the company’s vision to become the most well-known salon for spreading love and kindness and breaking the narrative in the industry.
The program, which began two months ago, asks the community to nominate people for a complimentary surprise makeover.
A man named Andrew, who was a former schoolmate of Ms. Proiett, nominated his mother. She was chosen as the first recipient as she'd just been through a difficult relationship breakdown.
“She lost a lot when that relationship ended,” Ms. Proietti said. “She puts herself last in every situation so that she can put the kids first, and I think it was really special that Andrew did this for his mom, because, you know, there’s a bit of a stigma and a bit of a stereotype that boys are low in emotion.”
Before the surprise makeover, Ms. Proietti read a letter to Vicki that read:
Listening to her son’s heartfelt words, Vicki couldn’t hold back her tears.
With emotions running high, Ms. Proietti drove Vicki to her salon for a well-deserved makeover.
Welcoming Vicki with flowers, Ms. Proietti and her team set out to work over the next four hours, giving Vicki a base color along with highlights. The team then gave her a beautiful cut and treatment.
The team went above and beyond to provide Vicki with lunch, a treat, and some hair care products to take back home.
Vicki was overjoyed with her new makeover.
“We actually covered the mirror so that she couldn’t see. While we were blow drying her hair, I think she was really nervous,” Ms. Proietti said. “But when she got to see herself in the mirror, she actually became quite emotional because it’s clear that she has never splurged that much on herself. And she felt really beautiful. She was extremely over the moon with her hair.”
Andrew told Ms. Proietti that afterward, Vicki was “just glowing for the whole afternoon. She couldn’t wipe the smile off her face.”
One comment that especially stood out to Vicki was: “You’re doing God’s work.”
A Monumental Shift
The program didn’t stop with just Vicki’s makeover, Ms. Proietti and her team recently did a makeover for a woman who had lost her house in recent flooding in Brisbane.“We went and picked her up and got a beautiful makeover, and she was so happy because she’s never been able to afford to go to the hairdressers,” Ms. Proietti said.
Though they have only been doing this for a short time, this has already caused a monumental shift in Ms. Proietti’s life.
She said: “I’m doing it for them, but I think part of me is doing it to bring some love back into my life as well because I think social media has really brought me down over the years. It’s made me feel a lot of impostor syndrome, like I’m not good enough, and made me feel like giving up sometimes in this industry, and just to be able to give people something back and see how happy that me and my team have been able to make them. It just has brought a lot of love back for me for this industry.”
Since embarking on this path, Ms. Proietti encourages others to do the same.
