Kristin Overton: Stylist Enjoys
Impacting People’s Lives
Her work: Stylist at Hair Benders on Gunbarrel Road. She’s been there almost 10 years, “long enough to know I love it. It’s really cool because it allows you to have an impact on people’s lives. A lot of our clients are stressed to the max or don’t feel good about themselves, but they come to us, check out for a while, we work with them, and their feet don’t touch the ground when they leave. What we do has a much broader impact that the top of a person’s head. If your hair looks good, everything else is great.”

Her family: She and her husband Randy, a pharmacist, have one daughter, Natalie Elizabeth. “What I used to want for my daughter was the typical answer, to be happy. Now I want to see her grow up to have a relationship wit God and to realize that she’s part of a really cool family that I want her to love as much as I do.”

Her home: A 130-year-old farmhouse in Chickamauga. Her husband bought the house in the late ‘80s, and they’re involved in a major renovation. “Once you live in an old house, you look at new houses totally differently.”

Her travels: She’s visited Germany, England, Hawaii, Mexico, Japan, and the Caribbean. The Dutch Antilles is a favorite destination. “We love to go to hot places, islands where you can dive. We like tank tops and flip flops.” Many of her trips have been busman’s holidays, excursions to conferences with other members of the Hair Benders staff. “We get to hang out with some of the top hairdressers in the world. It’s really cool because things like that help you become best friends with the people you work with. My best friend Amy and I, we go to work together, we go to church together, and, of course, we look forward to going on trips together. It’s like a family thing.”

About her recent trip to Tokyo: “It is spotlessly clean. Everyone was totally into uniforms, and there were no parents. We went to Disneyland, and you’d see a group of 10 eight-year-olds walking around together. We kept waiting to see their chaperones. And I was amazed at how expensive things were. Normal American stuff is totally expensive there. The Gap is like a really exclusive store in Japan. Not just everyone goes shopping there.”

Her favorite movie: “Steel Magnolias. It’s a beauty shop movie. It’s Southern, it’s girls, and it’s a favorite movie at work. All someone has to do is mention it, and we’re quoting it the rest of the day.”

If her favorite restaurant offered a Kristin Overton Special: “That would be J Alexander, and the item would be chicken with bow tie pasta and sugar snap peas. They always have the sugar snap peas even if they’re not on the menu.”

How she describes herself: “I don’t know that I would describe myself the way other people would describe me. As a hairdresser, you have to be a lot of different things to a lot of different people. You don’t want to be boring for the fun crowd, and you don’t want to be wild for the stay-at-home mom. All in all, I’m more conservative that what meets the eye. I’m more grounded that I appear to be, but I hope I would get an E for enthusiasm.”