Behind the Hair: Emma Stewart
Emma Stewart knows a lot. About hair, of course, but about so many things you’d never guess. She’s a prime example of why you never call someone “just” a hair stylist. Between her bachelor’s degree and cosmetology license, there’s a Jupiter-sized spring of knowledge bubbling from her, and she’s often toying with going back for another degree. What’s more reassuring than Denver’s most educated hair professional on the job?
Pretty as a picture.
Believe it or not, many hair professionals hold degrees in other fields. They choose to practice hair for all kinds of reasons: it’s fun, it’s social, it’s independent work, and so on. Sometimes there’s opportunity for crossover work, but Emma will be hard-pressed to use her History and Anthropology degree while cutting your hair.
How she fell into the riveting study of old cultures might be a fun story for the salon chair. If you’re visiting Emma soon, skip down to the next paragraph and ask her about it in person for the full experience. For everyone else, Emma’s inquisitive little mind started rolling as a child after watching none other than Indiana Jones. You can thank her dad for refusing to watch kids movies just because he had kids. Some parents prefer to indoctrinate their children into the wonderful world of archeology when they’re still young. That, and her dad was a bit of a history nerd.
In case you wanted the height comparison.
Maybe that triggered her obsession with plants, which lured her into outer space, or it’s the other way around, or Emma wants to know everything. The girl loves to learn, “I’d collect degrees. Being a perpetual student would be super fun and something I’d like to revisit. There’s always a new topic.” Although if push comes to shove, her next topic isn’t hard to guess. Greenhouse Sciences, followed closely by Astrophysics, are great guesses.
Mashing up a couple of her favorite subjects, ask her about the recent photos Juno returned from Jupiter’s moon. Two words: space flowers. Moons are cool, but her favorite space phenomena are black holes. She admits there’s much we don’t know about them, but the mystery is part of the appeal. Her copy of Stephen Hawking’s “A Brief History of Time,” keeps her as much in the loop as anyone.
When asked about her interest in exploring oceans versus space, she chose space. “Cooler stuff, less scary. No question.” She may or may not be a thalassophobe (who isn’t?), but the thought of giant things swishing through that deep pressure like melted butter isn’t for Emma. She’ll take the endless empty void above our heads, thank you. The coolest thing about space? Venus spins backwards; it’s her favorite fun fact. That’s another good anecdote to drag out of her at your next appointment. Ask about her other favorites, “I like the space ones, they make you feel insignificant, and there’s something comforting about that.”
It’s like a window to another world.
Please don’t turn Emma into a vampire. If you are one yourself, congratulations, but Emma has zero interest in anything eternal. “People who talk about living forever, I’m like, really, why?” She prefers the cycle of change, and that goes double for the Colorado seasons. If she had to choose to live in one season forever, it’d be Autumn. “It’s got the colors.” That might be a surprising admission considering her accidental life motto to learn as much as possible. Someone so enamored with learning should welcome the chance to live forever so they can keep on reading. Respectfully, Emma’s going to pass.
She’ll live with gorillas though. Whether that’s to learn from them, teach them, or hang out and chill, “They’re fun. They’re kind of cute, even the silverback ones.” Better yet, if you have the right equipment, feel free to shrink her down and give her fairy wings, because her rightful place is saving the rainforests of Fern Gully.
Color-Vision.
Between all that, she finds time to coif so much hair. She’s the definition of a Jane of all trades. She admits, “I get overwhelmed in social settings, but with hair, I get to talk to people and focus on one person at a time. I get to help people in a way that’s creative and fun.” That’s right, she called you fun. It doesn’t matter if Emma inspires your next hair color or your next big life event, either way, she’ll inspire you. “The fact that I exist at all, that anybody exists and has the opportunity to life a life is cool, so why waste it?”