Four years ago, Amber Harlan had no idea what was happening to her. Resurfaced trauma from childhood, the death of a friend and the Route 91 Harvest Festival shooting triggered a series of manic episodes, landing her in a mental institution. “I lost my job [and] I lost a lot of my family members, because nobody knew what to do with me,” she says.
The hair stylist was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder and has since received the help she’s needed all along. Now, as the founder of the Noise Project hair salon, Harlan has set out to normalize the conversation around mental health and emotionally unburden her clients—one haircut at a time.
How did you come up with the name the Noise Project? It was created about four years ago when I was going through all my stuff. My mind wouldn’t stop, the noise in my mind just wouldn’t honestly f*ck off. But it was the hyper stage of mania—hypertension and a [euphoric] feeling [that] I could achieve and do anything I wanted. I had to learn how to listen to the noise and how to dissect the noise, and nurture the noise and break down the noise, so I could use the noise to help create the path that I wanted to create. My first class that I taught was called Turn Down the Noise. It was about listening to the noise and being able to sit with it and be present with it, but also not turn it away, but move through it; be able to take it in, nurture it and then let it move through you.
What’s the connection between mental health and hair? The hair is the covering of the brain, and we have so many nerve endings in the brain, so many connectors, so much trauma that lives in the brain that needs to be nurtured. The beautiful thing with hair is, it’s so transformative that we get to push through those barriers with people and really landscape features, highlight different things and change how people see themselves in order to move forward from that pain or trauma that they’ve been holding onto.
We have a lot of [clients who are] trans or transitioning, and that’s been a beautiful process for me. It’s being a part of that journey for them, because a lot of them are on estrogen or T or different hormones, so they are less in control of their outer appearances. So to kind of shape and mold that experience for them is really cool.
Do you think that connection is why so many people feel emotionally liberated when they drastically cut their hair? Oh, yeah. Through quarantine we had seven people in one week just shave their hair off. This whole year has been so transformative in how people view themselves, I feel like they’ve looked in the mirror longer from sitting with themselves for months. They are ready to get it off and ready to see something different within themselves.
I remember that first week back to work [after reopening], I just cried. I cried that whole week, because people were just wanting human touch. And it was weird, because I was ready to hug everyone, and we couldn’t hug everyone. So there was that experience of not having human touch, but wanting it and needing it so much that I think just having a place for people to come into after that was like, shedding. People could talk about their mental health. More and more today, we need to normalize it. We need to talk about it. Not a lot of people are doing well.
This sort of subverts the idea of hair salon gossip-in-the-chair, doesn’t it? Exactly, and we don’t do shop talk like that in our salon. Everything is very nurturing [and about] how do we move through this. We don’t gossip. We don’t live in that era. I hate that in a salon. That’s the one reason why I created this place, to get away from that gossip and the hatred and the energy that holds onto you. The girls have been trained, and I have been trained. We work with guest speakers all the time on how to be better versions of ourselves, so we can be better versions for our clients. We were doing healing workshops and yoga and different sorts of healing bowl classes when we first opened. I plan to start this Noisey Minds Meetup at the beginning of the year.
Tell us about that. It’s for the noisy mind. What that entails to me is bringing people together, having some snacks, talking about all the bullsh*t, cleansing and having a circle so we can all be seen with each other. I did one before, and it was so cleansing and beautiful.
Was it just you and your girls from the salon? Or did you invite more people? We did invite other people in, and it was really cool. Then after, we did a little sound bowl therapy, so everyone laid on the ground and just cried pretty much (laughs). But that’s one thing I really want to start incorporating back into this next year. So many people just need a healing space right now.
Tell us about your staff. They’re amazing. Maddie, who’s 22, is a little color wizard. She can build a canvas. I don’t know how she does it. Jasmine is amazing, too. She can do all the design work. She’s an artist like you’ve never seen; she can paint and make these beautiful design works on skulls. And then me—I do a lot of the hair cutting, crafting with haircuts and stuff.
We all work together to utilize our strengths, so we can make everyone happy. We have a person for everyone. We can handle textures, densities, all different fabrics of hair by just utilizing what we’re good at. It’s also been really cool [using] Instagram, putting our photos up there and really anticipating that same vision back into our chairs that we’re putting out there.
Nurturing is something you’ve mentioned several times. Has that also been a priority in your work in the past? I’ve always been a creator of events, I’ve always done big hair shows. But one thing I noticed was we weren’t incorporating real life. It was all just a show. It was just pretty hair. We didn’t focus on the inner self, the transitional part. So at the hair shows, I decided to take it upon myself and really make it about the noise, instead of just the hair. I want to do a noise retreat this year too. That’s my next goal.
Tell me about a client you’ve positively influenced with the Noise Project? I have a beautiful client, one of my favorites, who has BPD. She came to see me on day four of no sleep, because she was hyper manic and very sad. We sat together in the chair, and she just cried and cried and cried. Then, before she left, I made her an appointment at my mental health provider. I called my therapist. I set her up for an appointment. I said I was gonna take care of her first initial [session], however much it [cost]. Now, she’s medicated properly. She goes to see her therapist every month. She’s still living with BPD, every day is a struggle, but she’s doing the work. I just gave her resources. That’s what I do.
I also work with a [local] nonprofit called the Love Yourself Foundation. I love their foundation, because they work with outside resources to create more healing opportunities. They have little cards, breathing exercises that I can give to my clients if they’re having a bad day. We keep resources like that in the salon but I wish I could do more.
What advice can you give to someone who might be struggling mentally? Take care of yourself, whatever that looks like for you. If it’s getting away, get away. Nurture yourself in whatever way you need to take care of yourself, and f*ck everyone else if they don’t see what is right for you. Everyone has an opinion on what they think that they should do for your life, and that might work for you, but that might not work for me. Finding that within yourself and within your soul, that’s what’s going to heal you quicker.
Is there anything else you’d like to say? The most important part is to know that hair is the beginning of the transformation. What do you want to see in yourself to move through your traumas? What do you want to see in yourself to help ignite different features or bring out the best version of yourself? It all starts with the hair. It’s the first thing that everyone sees when they look at you, so how do you want to be read to people? And it’s OK to just be you.
The Noise Project 1028 Fremont St., thenoiseprojectlv.com. Tuesday-Friday, 11 a.m.-7 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.
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