Solidarity is Beautiful https://solidarityisbeautiful.podbean.com A Podcast About Revolutionizing the Beauty Industry.

The Solidarity is Beautiful podcast explores the structural realities of the beauty and grooming industry. The show examines cooperative ownership, unionization, independent contractor models, licensing boards, apprenticeship pathways, advocacy strategy, and industry trends. From policy reform to how collective power can change the industry, each episode bridges lived experience, activism, pop culture, and beauty history to examine how beauty professionals can build power, protection, and long-term sustainability. Hosted by Olive Scibelli, Founder of Mayday Salon Cooperative and Margaret Ferguson, MPA & Founder of Beyond the Chair.

]]> Mon, 24 Aug 2026 19:12:51 -0300 https://podbean.com/?v=5.5 en Copyright 2026 All rights reserved. Society & Culture 1440 episodic Solidarity Is Beautiful is a podcast about beauty work, labor, and collective power. Hosted by Olive Scibelli and Margaret Ferguson, it looks at the systems shaping the beauty industry through history, politics, pop culture, activism, and lived experience. From beauty school, licensing, and labor protections to race, gender, worker organizing, and salon culture, each episode takes a closer look at how the industry works and who it works for. At the heart of this show is a simple question: what would it take to build a better beauty industry? Through conversation, research, and storytelling, Olive and Margaret connect personal experience to bigger structural issues and explore what a more just, sustainable future could look like for cosmetologists, barbers, estheticians, and other beauty workers. solidarityisbeautiful solidarityisbeautiful No false https://pbcdn1.podbean.com/imglogo/image-logo/22534810/SIBpodlogo.png Solidarity is Beautiful https://solidarityisbeautiful.podbean.com 144 144 E3. White Beauty, Black Labor: The Racist History of the Beauty Industry E3. White Beauty, Black Labor: The Racist History of the Beauty Industry https://solidarityisbeautiful.podbean.com/e/episode-3-redo-3-redo/ https://solidarityisbeautiful.podbean.com/e/episode-3-redo-3-redo/#comments Mon, 24 Aug 2026 19:12:51 -0300 solidarityisbeautiful.podbean.com/12e824f3-8ffe-37e7-9f0b-afc0e7e88625 In this episode, Olive and Margaret unpack how slavery, segregation, white beauty standards, and racial capitalism shaped the modern beauty industry. From licensing and accreditation to salon culture, hiring, and the political power of Black beauty spaces, they trace how exclusion was built into beauty work — and why real change requires reckoning with that history. Stay tuned for more episodes as they unpack the many facets of the beauty industry and bring research-backed insight, sharp analysis, and bold conversation to what it means to be a cosmetologist, barber, or esthetician in the 2020s.

Follow @beyondthechair for more!

 

If you have any questions, comments or concerns or if you would like to correct or clarify any of the information in this video please e-mail solidarityisbeautiful@gmail.com 

https://www.beyondthechairco.org/

www.maydaycoop.com

 

]]> In this episode, Olive and Margaret unpack how slavery, segregation, white beauty standards, and racial capitalism shaped the modern beauty industry. From licensing and accreditation to salon culture, hiring, and the political power of Black beauty spaces, they trace how exclusion was built into beauty work — and why real change requires reckoning with that history.

Stay tuned for more episodes as they unpack the many facets of the beauty industry and bring research-backed insight, sharp analysis, and bold conversation to what it means to be a cosmetologist, barber, or esthetician in the 2020s.

Follow @beyondthechair for more!

 

If you have any questions, comments or concerns or if you would like to correct or clarify any of the information in this video please e-mail solidarityisbeautiful@gmail.com 

https://www.beyondthechairco.org/

www.maydaycoop.com

 

]]> solidarityisbeautiful false No 1650 3 full E2. Beauty School is a SCAM! E2. Beauty School is a SCAM! https://solidarityisbeautiful.podbean.com/e/episode-2/ https://solidarityisbeautiful.podbean.com/e/episode-2/#comments Mon, 24 Aug 2026 19:12:41 -0300 solidarityisbeautiful.podbean.com/aacb8bfe-3f7c-3779-8f1c-040def628f32 Beauty School is a Scam…but apprenticeships aren’t. 

In this episode, Olive and Margaret dig into the crisis in beauty education: high tuition, low-quality training, student debt, federal aid controversy, and the corporate interests keeping the system in place. They break down why beauty school as we know it is failing workers, how apprenticeships can open the door to stronger training and labor protections, and what it would mean to build a future rooted in solidarity instead of exploitation.

 

Stay tuned for more episodes as they unpack the many facets of the beauty industry and bring research-backed insight, sharp analysis, and bold conversation to what it means to be a cosmetologist, barber, or esthetician in the 2020s.

Follow @beyondthechair for more!

 

If you have any questions, comments or concerns or if you would like to correct or clarify any of the information in this video please e-mail solidarityisbeautiful@gmail.com 

https://www.beyondthechairco.org/

www.maydaycoop.com

]]> Beauty School is a Scam…but apprenticeships aren’t. 

In this episode, Olive and Margaret dig into the crisis in beauty education: high tuition, low-quality training, student debt, federal aid controversy, and the corporate interests keeping the system in place. They break down why beauty school as we know it is failing workers, how apprenticeships can open the door to stronger training and labor protections, and what it would mean to build a future rooted in solidarity instead of exploitation.

 

Stay tuned for more episodes as they unpack the many facets of the beauty industry and bring research-backed insight, sharp analysis, and bold conversation to what it means to be a cosmetologist, barber, or esthetician in the 2020s.

Follow @beyondthechair for more!

 

If you have any questions, comments or concerns or if you would like to correct or clarify any of the information in this video please e-mail solidarityisbeautiful@gmail.com 

https://www.beyondthechairco.org/

www.maydaycoop.com






]]> solidarityisbeautiful false No 1697 2 full E1. How Olive Met Margaret E1. How Olive Met Margaret https://solidarityisbeautiful.podbean.com/e/e1-solidarity-is-beautiful-how-olive-met-margaret/ https://solidarityisbeautiful.podbean.com/e/e1-solidarity-is-beautiful-how-olive-met-margaret/#comments Mon, 24 Aug 2026 19:12:06 -0300 solidarityisbeautiful.podbean.com/5b499420-8231-3e51-ba1f-4805245d38eb On the inaugural episode of Solidarity Is Beautiful, Olive and Margaret share how social media actually did its job when a simple hashtag - #HairstylistUnion - brought them together.

What they didn’t know then was that they had arrived at the same conclusion from different paths: beauty workers need power, protection, and a better future. That shared vision led them to build their respective projects: Beyond the Chair, a beauty advocacy and education nonprofit, and the country’s first true worker-owned beauty cooperative.

 

Stay tuned for more episodes as they unpack the many facets of the beauty industry and bring research-backed insight, sharp analysis, and bold conversation to what it means to be a cosmetologist, barber, or esthetician in the 2020s.

Follow @beyondthechair for more!

 

If you have any questions, comments or concerns or if you would like to correct or clarify any of the information in this video please e-mail solidarityisbeautiful@gmail.com 

https://www.beyondthechairco.org/

www.maydaycoop.com

]]> On the inaugural episode of Solidarity Is Beautiful, Olive and Margaret share how social media actually did its job when a simple hashtag - #HairstylistUnion - brought them together.

What they didn’t know then was that they had arrived at the same conclusion from different paths: beauty workers need power, protection, and a better future. That shared vision led them to build their respective projects: Beyond the Chair, a beauty advocacy and education nonprofit, and the country’s first true worker-owned beauty cooperative.

 

Stay tuned for more episodes as they unpack the many facets of the beauty industry and bring research-backed insight, sharp analysis, and bold conversation to what it means to be a cosmetologist, barber, or esthetician in the 2020s.

Follow @beyondthechair for more!

 

If you have any questions, comments or concerns or if you would like to correct or clarify any of the information in this video please e-mail solidarityisbeautiful@gmail.com 

https://www.beyondthechairco.org/

www.maydaycoop.com

]]> solidarityisbeautiful false No 1715 1 full