Mermaid Hair Schenectady, New York
The company said they’d start paying back what they owed her in weekly installments. When she pushed back and asked to set up a payment plan for the money she was owed, she was met with silence. A few months before she left, Johnstun was told she’d be expected to take over production management—on top of her creative direction—despite living across the country in New York.
“That’s a lot of money for someone like me,” she said. The kind of money most women creatives are never encouraged to fight for. This was survival money. This wasn’t chump change. “We never heard anything back from them—not from the company, not from the arbitrator,”
🤯 I have seriously been searching for a volumizing mousse that didn’t leave my hair feeling crispity crunchity my entire life and kinda gave up hope. “It’s a real bummer the way it ended,” she told me. “I loved so much of what I got to do. A whole chorus of people left behind while the company smiled for Instagram, an account now run by https://dnagamers.com/ the owner’s eldest daughter.
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Has anyone else tried any Minoxidil based products?? This would even be clutch in the salon for fine haired clients, and ESPECIALLY to prep wedding updos! In celebration of the museum’s brand-new galleries, artists, actors, musicians, models, and more showed their support for the new expansion. If you have a story to share about this brand and want to tell your story, reach out to There are customers forced to file claims with their credit card companies just to get back the money they paid for dresses that never shipped. Because while the brand once claimed to be built on sisterhood and style, what was left in its wake was something else entirely.
Pinup Jordan’s Mermaid Lounge (@pinupjordan) • Instagram …
- “The industry has changed, and I no longer feel like PUG is where my heart is.”
- And through it all, the company kept spinning the same tired story “Everything’s fine.
- We love reading comments like this!
- Has anyone else tried any Minoxidil based products??
And love doesn’t cancel debt.She’s not asking for pity. She still believes in empowering women through style.But belief doesn’t pay the bills. Seeing people in things I designed pin up app is my favorite thing in the world. She gave this company her art, her time, her heart—and when the lights went out, she was still standing there, holding the weight of it all. I know this because I have the stories shared with me by people who choose to stay anonymous.
With approvals from the company owner, I was planning collections by picking the styles that would be produced in each print and solid.” It wasn’t a vanity title. “I started to take on more responsibility, running the social media, connecting with influencers, and taking over purchasing for shoes and accessories. “I began sometime in mid-2020 doing work on the back end of the https://sblouin.com/ site—things like uploading new images, editing images, writing copy for products, and merchandising pages,” she said. This wasn’t just artistic flair—her work brought serious revenue.
So let’s have coffee and catch up if you’re needing an unbiased ear and 14 years of industry experience! For more advanced social media management, we can also call in the big dogs at Creative Collective Marketing! We’ll take a deep dive into your page and discuss how you can improve your content, optimize your profile, understand your insights, and use that information to empower your social media presence. I recently got the opportunity to do a social media review with Meta, and they basically gave me all of the secret nuggets of Instagram in 2024.
Majestic Beauty Salon
Upon arrival, the shoe felt snug across the forefootexactly how the original feels when newbut the collar padding was noticeably softer and didn’t hold the ankle as firmly. The only noticeable differences upon close inspection were slightly thinner rubber outsole tread depth and a less rigid plastic heel counterdetails that don’t affect daily wear but matter if you’re a collector. If you’re searching for these because you want the look of a vintage Air Jordan 5 without paying $300+ retail price, then these replicas deliver an impressive visual match. From natural colors to pastel hues our stylists can mix up almost anything! It’s such a warm and welcoming place and the hairstylists are top tier at what they do. She is easy to talk to and will make you feel extremely comfortable in her chair.
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I love doing hair, but good is the enemy of great. About 3 years ago, I got tired of waiting for things to change in the hair industry and decided if I thought I could do it better, that I should give it a shot. We lived a whole era together—some of the best, wildest, most creative years of my life. 💔 I don’t even know what to say right now. Headed to Hattie’s powered by SEAT Center in collab with Business for Good Foundation for a Dining Etiquette life skills class.
Stylist Spotlight
When I asked Hope if there were red flags around money at PUG, she didn’t elaborate. “The owner would often disappear for weeks or months at a time, and then come back and be upset that things weren’t being done the way she wanted—even though she hadn’t communicated what she wanted.” It wasn’t just the workload.
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If everywhere else in the world feels scary right now, just know you are safe in my businesses and I’m sitting in solidarity with you. We don’t gatekeep, so I’ve been sharing this trick for the last few months, and I can absolutely say that the long-term health of our returning client’s hair has been noticeable, especially when they keep up on treatments at home. I would be in a whole convention center full of hair stylists and feel like I was there alone because we are all scrambling like little rats all over the venue trying to find the next presentation and not connecting with each other. Ju Ju, I’m sorry this life wasn’t more gentle on you, but I’m going to remember you this way. ❤️ So I guess I don’t know what else to say, but I wanted to you know in case you also knew and loved Jewel and wanted to know about his passing. Over the last few years, Jewel strayed from the hair industry and moved back home to Louisiana to be closer to his mom, who he loved endlessly.
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And I know AI sucks, but I’d rather use it to create this post and let people know where I stand in a way that helps me communicate it than stay silent and post hair like nothing is happening. Is a privately owned business that is by appointment only. I’m grateful to own a business where I know that every stylist aligns politically and work is a safe space for us and likeminded clients. I refuse to stay quiet because it’s important to be abundantly clear where I stand as a person of privilege with a platform, and as a business owner with a voice. 👋🏼 We talk about holocaust so it would never happen again, and yet here we are, watching families get ripped apart and people murdered at peaceful protests by the US government in 2026. We had a lovely day at the Mermaid Lounge creating beautiful hair, oblivious to what was going on in the outside world until closing time.
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Byrnes often framed criticism as cruelty, casting herself as a victim of online bullying rather than a business owner responsible for her company’s failures. It wasn’t the graceful exit of a founder closing a beloved chapter. “The industry has changed, and I no longer feel like PUG is where my heart is.” The slow, messy collapse of Pinup Girl Clothing wasn’t just a fashion industry footnote—it was a masterclass in how not to treat the very women who made you matter.
“If a company claims to be here for female empowerment and to support women, it should pay women who work for them.” “It’s so weird and uncomfortable and embarrassing, and I hate it.”This wasn’t a brand anymore. It’s about how many times you can be told “we care about women” by people who treat your work like it’s disposable.And through it all, Hope stayed silent. “The fact that they’re now using my designs to promote new products without paying me or giving me credit is just adding insult to injury.” “I don’t come from a family with money.
Majestic Beauty Salon
And the gaslighting wasn’t limited to financial realities. The company was deeply in debt. And if the truth makes “some” people uncomfortable? Compared to thicker-soled alternatives like New Balance 550s or Adidas Sambas, these feel lighter and more agile. Even in colder weather, they layer well under cropped wool coats because they don’t add unnecessary volume. For niche, design-driven products like these, AliExpress isn’t just convenientit’s the most transparent marketplace available.
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Plus the salon is just such a friendly and open environment. You really can’t go wrong with any of the stylists. They have a team of experienced stylists who specialize in creating unique looks for each of their clients.
The company never responded. That lasted a few months. “I had taken the day off because it was my husband’s birthday… and I got a message saying they could no longer afford to pay me hourly and pay off the debt they owed me. It wasn’t accidental. Hope Johnstun’s own payments stopped altogether after Spring 2022. Quiet restructuring because this beautiful legacy brand that fans had come to admire and were committed to supporting was falling apart behind a curated grid of pretty pictures.
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- “I was also planning, promoting, and running sales, which included answering all customer questions on behalf of the company in the Facebook group and on Instagram and TikTok.
- Everyone at this salon is incredible but Liv has been doing my hair for years and there is nobody in the world I trust more to deliver exactly what I want.
- Compared to thicker-soled alternatives like New Balance 550s or Adidas Sambas, these feel lighter and more agile.
- She gives credit where it’s due.“There were people there who were really good at their jobs, and I loved working with them.
- Because while the brand once claimed to be built on sisterhood and style, what was left in its wake was something else entirely.
“The owner of the company stated to several people that it was worth breaking their non-disparagement clause because they believed that they were standing up to a bully.” It wasn’t some petty spat—it was about copyright infringement and the unauthorized use of Pitt’s designs and images after she left the brand.It was public. She gives credit where it’s due.“There were people there who were really good at their jobs, and I loved working with them. But that didn’t come without a punch to the gut, “I was told to post my face more when representing the brand because I gave legitimacy to the plus size clothing.”
A reminder of just how disposable creatives become when a company decides their work matters more than their name. That wasn’t just a slap in the face. “I ended up having to sell the majority of my collection of clothes to pay my bills. And in the months after being let go, she had to make impossible choices just to stay afloat.
🥰 I just got the official word that one of my favorite brands is sending over one of my FAVORITE vivid educators from the other side of the world to come teach you all! Returning sponsors get first pick before packages are open to the public, but we created spaces for our local, hairstylist-owned and small business besties, of course. Representative of the stylists it was created for. Super hot educators that haven’t had a back to back day of clients in a salon in years, if ever. Cosmetology school taught me how to pass the state board exam, but there was no required tertiary education after that, which is crazy for an ever changing industry.
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Others have come forward with similar stories—missed paychecks, ghosted collaborations, bounced affiliate payouts. And it wasn’t the only promise broken.That’s the part no one sees—the part that doesn’t fit in a press release or a curated Instagram caption. They were building new products on her back while still owing her $25,000. But to take that and use it to make more money, when, again, they still have not paid me—hurtful.” But to take something that I hand drew, that is something I really love … It’s so detailed. It has been taken and just kind of rearranged.”It wasn’t inspiration.
Pinup Jordan’s Mermaid Lounge is a hair salon located in Schenectady, New York. Want your business to be the top-listed Beauty Salon in Schenectady? I had the once in a lifetime opportunity to go to the grand opening of the in NYC last night, and it was exactly as cool as that sounds 😍 A whole new educational hub on the east coast for , , , , , , , , , , and more! Sending big mer-mom hugs to all of my friends and followers that are feeling extra heavy tonight. I don’t know how we come back from this, but I guess talking about it so it never happens again is a good start.
It wasn’t just the use of her illustrations. But when the company started using her unpaid labor to sell empowerment? Those illustrations were hers, not the company’s. Hope explained that during her time at the company, she drew sketches of dress styles that were used internally to test how prints would scale on garments—and externally for pre-release promotional materials.
