Stand Out

Christopher Matias of Hair Attractions…

Ten years ago, Christopher Matias graduated from a local cosmetology school and rented a booth at a Redding beauty shop. Within a year, he purchased that shop, which in another year was paid in full. He now runs Hair Attractions and rents booths in the shop to select hairdressers who have the opportunity to learn advanced techniques, the same lessons Matias teaches his students at his alma mater, Shasta School of Cosmetology.

Of course, Matias offers his own clients his expertise hairdressing, exercising a talent begun as a child working in his mother’s shop in Puerto Rico. His clientele ranges from women to men to small children. The care he exhibits to all who sit in his chair has earned him a reputation as a skilled and conscientious handler of hair, wise beyond his 30 years.

He stood out from the start. Tina Hitchcock Nelson met Matias when he was 19 and straight out of cosmetology school. At Hair Attractions, his chair stood next to Nelson’s hairdresser’s. When her hairdresser told Nelson she was moving on, she recommended Nelson try Matias. Nelson did, and was amazed at how her hair coloring process that used to take two shop visits now took only one. “It comes out beautiful every time,” Nelson says. “He’s just magnificent.”

She calls him a master of hair color. Years before he began teaching at Shasta School of Cosmetology, she witnessed him answering questions from other Hair Attractions hairdressers promptly and concisely. “He spits out this chemical formula of steps, a pinch of this and a pinch of that, and he’s actually teaching the other hairdressers, teaching them how to be better,” she says.

Matias effortlessly wins people’s trust. Vicki Oller has also known Matias for many years, and she and her husband Rich adopted a baby boy who she says has an abusive past. When time came for the traumatized child’s first haircut, the Ollers naturally took him to their friend’s beauty shop. To comfort the boy, they set him on his father’s lap in Matias’ chair. “The way he handled him was so gentle,” she says, recalling Matias’ approach. “He knew to use scissors instead of the buzzer. He was so careful.” She says the first haircut was such a success that for the second one, the boy was comfortable sitting in the salon chair all by himself.

Matias began working in his mother’s beauty shop at a very young age. “She didn’t have a babysitter, so even through school, I was always in the corner watching everything,” he recalls. “And I helped her, because she didn’t have anybody to help. I was little, I’d say 8. And I liked it a lot. So when I moved here, she told me, you should go to school to become a hairdresser.”

He and his mother moved to Redding when he was 15. He graduated from Shasta High School, then tried Shasta College for a year or so, dropping out to pursue a beauty career. While building a clientele at Hair Attractions, he had to work two jobs to make ends meet. “For my income, I was working full-time at Jamba Juice, working part-time at Wendy’s, sleeping three hours, then working more at the salon,” he says.

While working this wearying schedule, he noticed that he was the only one actually working in the shop, and decided to take action. “It was either I will have to find another place or I will buy it,” he recalls. “I talked to the owner and he said he didn’t want it. That’s pretty much how it went.” Matias bought Hair Attractions on a payment agreement. “I paid it off in a year,” he says proudly.

Today, he runs Hair Attractions, renting booths to aspiring cosmetologists, as he was 10 years ago. And he teaches at Shasta School of Cosmetology. And, of course, he personally serves a long list of clients who loyally return to him for his hairdressing skills.

It’s loyalty that keeps Vicki Oller from making an appointment with her friend, the talented young hairdresser. That’s loyalty to another hairdresser, one she’s gone to for years. But, she says, if the day ever came where she parted with her hairdresser, she would sign up with Matias at Hair Attractions without hesitation, declaring, “Oh, I would have no problem with Chris doing my hair!” •

Hair Attractions • 2610 Bechelli Lane, Redding
(530) 338-4812 • Hours by appointment