Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:01 Good morning, Fort McMurry, wood, Buffalo, and the rest of the world. You've tuned into the Mac city morning show. I'm your host, Elliot Pierre. And we're going to start this off the same way we always do with a moment of moment of gratitude. I know you could be doing a million other things with your time. So the fact that you're spending with us truly does mean the world to me. Now on that note, Tanner
Speaker 1 00:00:21 Hit him with, Oh, she caught me near listen to the next <inaudible>
Speaker 0 00:00:32 All right. Okay. I'm excited. We got a bang of an episode today. This lady is full of life, full of positivity. I can't wait to get to know her a little bit better. So I'm really, really excited about this episode. As you're already aware, I do not introduce my guests. I let them introduce themselves cause they can do a much better job than I can. So on that note, can you please introduce yourself to the world? Tell them who you are and what you're about. Hi,
Speaker 2 00:00:55 Uh, my name is Amanda chubs and most of you know me as amunder I guess, cause that's my nickname. And I guess alias at this point, I am a hairstylist here in Fort McMurray and I run a full-fledged booty beauty salon. So I do hair and makeup. And last year I did a really cool project called birthday on wheels. And that's how we met.
Speaker 0 00:01:19 That is a very cool project. Very cool. Now, before we get started, there's so many questions I have for you. You're going to be doing a lot of talking today. The first thing I want to talk about is your nickname. How did this Amanda start?
Speaker 1 00:01:34 Um, we were in
Speaker 2 00:01:37 Man. We were really young and my like best friend Nikki was trying to call out to me one day and she just stuttered on my name and called me amunder and it stuck. My parents even called me amateur, my family, everyone. It's just,
Speaker 0 00:01:53 That's awesome. That's how everything started.
Speaker 2 00:01:55 Yeah. And it's, it's been true. Like even my little guy calls me. I'm under.
Speaker 0 00:01:59 That's awesome. Okay. Cause yeah, I see this online all the time and it's how you, your profile name is. And I'm like, there's no way her parents named her this, so. Okay. Very nice. It is cool. It's different. I love it. Yeah, no doubt.
Speaker 2 00:02:18 I have to write it as an alias. Like when I go places, they're like, do you have an alias? And I have to write it because it's in so many places now that's true.
Speaker 0 00:02:25 Oh, that's so cool. Let's cops know then you know, the cops know that and it, them more to find you, do you look like somebody who has a relationship with the police? They know me. There we go. So let's talk about this awesome project that you started. Like how like tell the people at home what it is first and foremost, and then we can get into how it all started. But
Speaker 2 00:02:46 It's called the Fort McMurray birthday party on wheels and how it started was, um, he was eight at the time and I have a little boy and I've always been that mom that just goes like way overboard with birthdays. You know, we rent the big room, we rent the pool, we do the decorations, they extravagant cakes and everything. So for my son to not be able to have a birthday party and have zero people around, it was a huge hit to him. So we, I just looked around at different things to do. And I was like, okay, well we'll just, we'll just see if we can get some people together and we'll do a little drive by. And it turned out to be this huge, huge project that lasted like five and a half months. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. I was on the news in Australia. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:03:35 The first time I saw it, I had a kid on my block. It was his birthday and all of a sudden there's these cars driving by because I live on a pretty quiet street. So to have like 50 cars just pull in, in a lineup and Hawkin and whoop, I was like, what the heck is going on? And so then I did a little bit of research and yeah, like you started this amazing things for kids like
Speaker 2 00:03:59 Blue up. Yeah. It blew up. Yeah. And then what it turned into, what
Speaker 0 00:04:04 I can only imagine was a full time job
Speaker 2 00:04:06 For you. It was a full-time job. There was some times it went from 8:00 AM to 7:00 PM and every 15 minutes just banging out another party. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:04:18 So for the people at home who don't know what this is, basically you can put your kid's name on your Facebook group or get in contact with you. And then you had organized a bunch of people who just like were on there and they would drive by this kid's house on the birthday at a certain time and just honking, wish kids happy birthday. Absolutely. It was something else,
Speaker 2 00:04:42 Cars and firetrucks and ambulance and everyone there was off duty police. They would come when they weren't working. Kids loved it. Animals tagged along. There was a bunch of people in the community who owned horses. They were, they were on horses. Right.
Speaker 0 00:04:58 You did one for your birthday. And that was what blew my mind. There was like three horses, horses, horses coming from
Speaker 2 00:05:05 Like lots of bikes and
Speaker 0 00:05:09 Yeah. Pretty cool. Yeah. It was really beautiful thing that you created there, especially during COVID like why you want to make your children's birthday special still. Right.
Speaker 2 00:05:16 And it was pretty awesome. And we did them for more than just like, they weren't just for kids. We did them for a lot of seniors down at the rotary house. Um, we did them for people who just had babies. Cause they couldn't have baby showers or you know, a family couldn't meet the baby. So we did little drive by for that. It was really fun.
Speaker 0 00:05:35 That's right. So do you think you're going to do it or is there a need for it this summer coming up or was it kind of like the one, one summer thing?
Speaker 2 00:05:42 Well, I'm not quite sure if everything, I don't want to jinx it, but if we go back into lockdown, I always said that I would, I would start it again. But with everything mostly open for the, like for the most part, everything is open. So it's of difficult to round people up for it. That's right. So unfortunately right now we can't do them, but people still do them on their own or they message me and I'll say, yeah, just put it on the page and yeah. Yeah. They do it from there.
Speaker 0 00:06:08 Cool. So it's not a as much administration work for you anymore?
Speaker 2 00:06:12 No, it's, it's definitely calmed down a lot, but there's still a lot of people that do them and they do them individually. I have all the rules on the page on how to do it. Don't do it any later than seven o'clock, you know, always be respectful pass on the right side of the road so that nobody's crossing out in front to try to run and
Speaker 0 00:06:28 Yeah. Yeah. It was super cool. It was
Speaker 2 00:06:31 So much fun. Oh yeah. It was, it was
Speaker 0 00:06:33 Really fun. And you met so many people,
Speaker 2 00:06:35 So many people, like
Speaker 0 00:06:37 You turned into like a big time celebrity in town.
Speaker 2 00:06:41 It's kind of strange, but it's definitely strange being someone like myself, I'm typically shy and now I can't move without people being like, Oh hi, you know, they recognize us. They say hello to us in the mall, grocery store, kids know who everybody's kids know who I am.
Speaker 0 00:06:59 That's what's going to happen. Now the kids that remember you now, and they're only going to get older and you're going to be recognized for years to come. I'm just giving you a heads up on that one. Then I have to start wearing a wig when I go out. Find a noticeable. Yeah. So let's talk about your hair and let's talk about your company. So you have a whole salon, so you're doing makeup, hair, everything. So how long you've been doing that for?
Speaker 2 00:07:22 Um, well, I first went to hair school in 2002. Okay. And I've taken a break every once in a while through there, I used to work out at, you know, I worked at, at Syncrude. I've worked at a few places here in town and, but I always go back to it. It's always my passion. Um, and then when I had my son, I just couldn't do the hours at a salon anymore because it just became difficult. So I started doing it from home. And then about six years ago I got my business license and I started doing it out of the small life, like a small room in my basement. And now we have the whole basement of our house converted into a beautiful salon.
Speaker 0 00:08:01 That's awesome. Good for you. Yeah. So it was primarily yourself working there or do you have some other individuals?
Speaker 2 00:08:07 You have two chairs and it's primarily myself that works there, but I do rent it out to two or three stylists as well.
Speaker 0 00:08:13 Okay. Yeah. And so everything from hair, makeup, what else?
Speaker 2 00:08:16 Uh, mostly just hair and makeup. I do makeup tutorials and yeah. So we do one-on-one we do birthday parties, um, groups. So we would have people over and I'd set up like a table in the salon and I could do up to 10 people. Okay. Yeah. I don't sell makeup or anything, but I do give like skincare advice and I have a really good network of people here in town as well that do, um, like my girlfriend does facial, so I'll send them there to get like proper skincare and everything like that.
Speaker 0 00:08:46 Okay. Very cool. See Montana Tanner. We're not, we're not hitting up salon, so I don't know what happens there. That's neat though. Yeah. All right. So now you got nice green hair. Same to same color as the chairs were in. I love these chairs. Thank you. They're so comfortable. They are very comfortable. Have you always, how long have you had green hair and what other colors have you had? I've had green hair for seven years. Seven years. It's a bit of a staple now. Okay. So it was green. Your favorite color. How did you pick green? Like why green?
Speaker 2 00:09:21 My son. It was my son's favorite color. And he was like, mommy, I want you to have green hair. Cause I had purple hair. And he was like, dye your hair green for me. And I was like, okay. And every once in a while I'll still be like, Hey, do you still want me to dye my hair? Green? What about blue? And he's like, no, I like the green. Okay. And now it's just,
Speaker 0 00:09:39 It's just there. Oh, you have dark eyebrows. So I'm assuming you have dark hair like myself? No, I'm blonde. Oh, you're blonde now. Cause I was going to say, how are you holding that color? Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:09:49 Yeah. No. I'm blonde naturally with black eyebrows naturally.
Speaker 0 00:09:52 Oh, okay. It's weird. So that's how you can hold that color so, well then how often do you have to diet? Once every like three, four months. Well, that's not horrible at all. No, I use permanent color, so it sticks around pretty good. Wow. And you told us right before you came here, you cut your hair for the show, but you have super long hair. Although it's long inches off today. It's still long though. So it looks nice. Thank you. Wow. I'm shocked that it holds that long. Cause I've always thought, especially I got grounded back in the day I dyed my hair and my dad got very upset. Um, I wanted to have blonde hair. I just listen to you end up with like highlighter orange. Yeah. It was like a car. Yeah. It didn't turn out. Well, and I got in a lot of trouble and I didn't even like, it I'm like, this was just the worst thing ever. It doesn't look good. I don't like it. And um, my punishment was hefty to say the least
Speaker 2 00:10:46 You don't need to ground me. I'm already suffering.
Speaker 0 00:10:49 So I thought that color would be hard to stay in. But yeah, you don't have to die that often. No, I don't have the diet very often. Okay.
Speaker 2 00:10:58 Pretty good. And I mean, it's, it's been in there for so many years now that it's just up here will fade, but down here never really goes away.
Speaker 0 00:11:04 Right? Yeah. Okay. So for people at home who want to like get in contact with you and uh, come and utilize your services, is this all referral-based or I'm assuming you must have a page or something that they can get in contact? Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:11:16 I have a Facebook page and an Instagram page and it's headcase artistry is the name of my salon. And uh, yeah. I usually go by word of mouth. I don't usually advertise. I'm currently not accepting new clients because I have a full clientele, but I always advertise when my books are open and right.
Speaker 0 00:11:35 Yeah. So I have another question just because I'm not in the industry whatsoever. You do makeup. I do. Okay. So outside of like weddings or grad or something, when would people come in to get makeup done all the time. Explain to explain this phenomenon to me. I don't get it like, cause I was like, if there's a business here, they're coming in more than just weddings and makeups. So like,
Speaker 2 00:11:58 Um, for photo shoots, like family photos, mommy and me photos, photography has really blown up in the last couple of years where people want photos of everything. So the women always want to look nice for it. They always want their kids' hair done. Nice. So they'll come in and we'll put a little bit of lipstick on the little girls and we'll do the mom's hair and makeup for photos. And um, we do weddings and date nights are huge. Date nights. Date nights are huge. Yeah. Huh? Yeah. I mean, Fort Mac's a busy town, so you don't really get to spend much time with your partner. Right. So when we actually get a date night, a lot of us go all out. Nice.
Speaker 0 00:12:39 Oh yeah. It's really interesting. Now the other component that you said was like, you do tutorials, you teach. I do. So what's that all about?
Speaker 2 00:12:47 Um, just for people who aren't really used to wearing makeup or have makeup and they can never really get it to look right. And they're not quite sure what to do. They'll come in and I can show them with either the makeup that they have or I can show them what the makeup that I have. And then I just teach them how to use their makeup and brushes and give them pointers on where to buy it and what products I like to use. Um, and yeah, it's just, it gives, gives people a little bit more of that boost of confidence to use their makeup. There you go. There's so many people who just dropped so much money on makeup and have no idea how to use it. Right. And sometimes it's just as simple as the brushes they're using.
Speaker 0 00:13:26 Yeah. Yes. Dudes, we don't have to think about that kind of stuff. But like when you think about like all the work that goes into putting on makeup, doing your hair and stuff. Fair enough. Like there's YouTube that you can go, but to actually get some hands on experience. Yeah. Huge benefit. Huge. So how long have you been doing that for?
Speaker 2 00:13:42 Um, I went and done my first makeup course in 2001. Okay. Yeah. And then every same way. Same with hair. I just keep doing, I continue my education all the time. Yeah. All the time. I'm always learning. Always continuing, always staying fresh and consistent. And knowledge is key.
Speaker 0 00:14:03 There you go. So do you think, well, none. Do you think, w are you seeing more like, uh, women coming in to get these tutorials? Are you getting like young girls for the first time? Like their moms are saying, Hey, you need to learn to do this. Let's see mostly women
Speaker 2 00:14:17 Because the young ones are on YouTube, so they don't need help. They know what to do. They figured it out. Cause there's a thousand influencers out there with makeup and brushes and tutorials and how to do it. But you know, 30 and up. Yeah. That's not our generation, so we're not used to that kind of stuff. So we're just kinda, we're very, hands-on people where the newer generations are just able to watch a video and learn. We physically need someone to show us. Okay.
Speaker 0 00:14:44 Yeah. No, it's true. It sounds silly, but no, it doesn't sound silly. I, uh, there was one time in my career a few years ago where I actually got flown out to Detroit to, it was the best. It was the best, but I got flown out there to teach a company how to shoot videos with their phones. Really? Yup. That's amazing. It was amazing. And it was a great trip, but same kind of deal in regards to there's lots of videos that you can go online and learn how to shoot a video on a phone. Um, this was a physical therapy company that had numerous clinics and they said, yeah, our age demographic, they're just not going to do it. They need like somebody to come and teach them. Um, I did a similar course in Vancouver and the guy saw it and he's like, Hey, can I, can you come to Detroit for a week and teach like my staff, how to do this? And I'm like, cause I had to do it so many times. Sorry you hit the mic Tanner. But yeah, like the age demographic of that above. Yeah. They need that hands-on experience.
Speaker 2 00:15:42 Huge age gap where it's just goes from YouTube capable to Nope. I need a physical, I need someone to physically sit down with me and teach me how to do it. Yeah. That's interesting. And it's nice. Cause I've been doing all this for so long now that I I've grown to be able to do both and appreciate both, right? Yeah. I'm socially awkward. So I don't do many live tutorials of me doing my makeup because I stutter and I stammer and it's, it's strange, but
Speaker 0 00:16:14 Well, if you ever need, we got another studio upstairs. We can, uh, I would love that we can hook you up. We can do some videos with you. It'd be cool. Sweet. Now we're running out of time. I'm horrible for just like letting these things go on too long. Um, we have a segment though, before we let you go call the max city minute, it's 10 or segment. He's going to ask you some questions. Yeah. I don't know what he's going to ask you so best luck Tanner hit her with the Mac minute.
Speaker 3 00:16:37 Number one. What is your wildest hair appointment story?
Speaker 2 00:16:41 My wildest hair appointment story. Um, I had a little girl come in and she was 14 years old and her hair was no joke almost to her ankles. Whoa. And she wanted to shave her head off her. All of it. All of it. Buzz cut. Yep. Yep. She did. She wanted it gone. Oh no. I had her sign a waiver. I had her mom signed a waiver. I had, I drafted up a legal document. Her hair was so long. Virgin hair. Never cut. Never colored right to the floor. And she just wanted it gone.
Speaker 3 00:17:22 Yeah. Question number two. What is your favorite part of your own birthday?
Speaker 2 00:17:29 My favorite part of my own birthday. Like my birthday that I had last year.
Speaker 3 00:17:35 Like your own birthday ever. My own birthday ever. Yeah. Like your favorite part is celebrating your own birthday.
Speaker 2 00:17:41 Get togethers. I'm a very social person and I really love having everyone together and feeding people. I have a complex, I love to feed people.
Speaker 3 00:17:55 Question number three. What is your favorite part of doing your work from home?
Speaker 2 00:18:01 Uh, having my son around, I absolutely love having him home all the time and being able to check on him and him always be there and just that little safety net and just always being able to have family time. Even when I'm working, I get to, you know, put color on someone's hair and then I get a 45 minute break and I get to spend that with him. So that's my favorite part.
Speaker 3 00:18:26 Question number four. What is one hair care trick? People might not know to do one hair care.
Speaker 2 00:18:35 You're not supposed to shampoo from root to end. You're only supposed to shampoo your scalp.
Speaker 0 00:18:41 There we go. I didn't know that. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:18:43 Cause the action of the bubbles going down through your hair when you rinse actually washes from like ears down. You're only, that's why it says like a dime sized amount and scrub your head. Lather, rinse. Repeat that's why?
Speaker 3 00:18:59 Yeah. I didn't know that learning stuff. And your final question. What is your favorite story from your time as a local celebrity
Speaker 2 00:19:07 Jackson's birthday party? Jackson's birthday party. Jax is um, Renee. Denise's his mom and Jax is the most beautiful, special little boy and um, he's disabled and he is just marvelous. And I, he has a all, he'll always have a piece of my heart. He's just so beautiful. And we did a birthday party for him and everyone showed up. Everyone from the autism society showed up. It was cold, it was crappy outside. And just everyone showed up. And I don't know if I've ever seen someone cry so much because they were so happy. It was such a beautiful moment.
Speaker 3 00:19:47 Those have been your five questions. There we go. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 0 00:19:51 No, we're not. We're not done yet. That's just Tanner session done. How are we doing for time though? We are at 20 minutes. Oh, we're at 20 minutes all while you, can we go over your show? Here we go. We're going to go over. Okay. So I want to follow up with this poor girl who shaved her head. So like I recently I had, I had long hair. I loved it. I miss it. I shaved it recently for my sister. Um, one day maybe, maybe I'll grow back. I kind of liked how it looks now, but I have a decent shaped head. You have great. Thank you. So I was cool with this. This girl, obviously didn't know what her head looked like. Was did she have an okay shaped head? She did. She had a great head. Oh thank God. I was like, you're telling this story. My heart was just like, please say she had a nice shaped head.
Speaker 2 00:20:37 Those things that I always checked for. I'm like, I'm a little vain when it comes to that, I'm like, Oh, we got to,
Speaker 0 00:20:42 You don't want to shave your head. If it's gonna look like a box. That's right. Oh my goodness. Perfect shape, Ted. It was beautiful.
Speaker 2 00:20:48 Okay. Did you keep in contact with this young lady? Did, did she grow her hair back? She did. Or what she did. Okay. I I'm, I'm roped in with a bunch of people in Edmonton. They do the hair massacre. Okay. So that's where they, um, they start fundraising a few months before the massacre and everyone dies their hair pink and they do fundraising. So they find groups of people who will do it as a collective. And then they also find like really like people who are very high up who normally would not have hot pink hair. That's okay. Yeah. That was my next question. What did she do with all this hair? Did she do it? She don't need it yet. Cause you said Virgin hair. Like God. Yeah. That's money. Yeah. It's it was long. Yeah, it was, I would say no joke. At least 40 inches of hair. Wow. Yeah. And so why did she decide to do this? That's why she grew it out. Oh, so she could give it away. It was just something she always started doing. I think she started growing it when she was like six or seven. Okay. And she specifically grew it for as long as she possibly could. Just so she could shave it.
Speaker 1 00:21:54 My guess is she started growing it at birth, but I'm done.
Speaker 2 00:21:59 Okay. Now the next thing you talked about is you like to, uh, you like to feed people, what's your go-to meal to make? I make a mean spaghetti spaghetti. I do. I make a mean spaghetti. Okay. Yeah. Right. What's mean about it. What's it like spaghetti? Yeah. What's mean about your spaghetti. It's homemade right from scratch. Right from scratch. Even the pasta. Even the pastor, the pastor is homemade. It's like fresh tomatoes. Okay. Everything is from scratch. All right. Well next time you come on the show. Cause you'll, there'll be a next time. I'll have to bring some, some spaghetti please. Okay. Do a video of just you guys tasting my spaghetti
Speaker 1 00:22:36 Or a video of you making said spaghetti, and then we will eat it.
Speaker 2 00:22:41 I like it. Okay. Now we went over. That happens. Sometimes it is what it is. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Really appreciate it. Obviously we could talk for hours. So I would love to have you back again and again, but before I cut you loose today, please let the people at home know once again, who you are about your business and how they can support you. Thank you. Uh, my name is Amanda chops and I have a beauty salon here in Fort McMurray, Alberta, and it's called headcase artistry. Um, on Instagram we're headcase artistry and on Facebook, we're also headcase artistry and everything else is on there. You can send me messages through both pages. There we go. Sweet. Awesome. Well Fort McMurray, wood, Buffalo, and the rest of the world. Once again. Thank you very much for tuning in. This has been the Mac city morning show. I'm your host, Elliot, Pierre. And I just want to thank you for spending the time with us. It does really mean the world to me. Hopefully you're having a great day and we'll see you tomorrow. Peace.
Speaker 1 00:23:38 I just <inaudible>.
Speaker 4 00:23:47 You talk about quenching your ugly thirst.
