Almost 65 per cent of employed beauticians are non-Bermudian, according to the Department of Statistics.

When Kidist Emery started Salon Pink, she really wanted to hire Bermudians.

“On an island that is saturated with foreign workers as stylists, it is nice to have a salon full of locals,” she said. It was more challenging than she expected.

“I spent a good four years trying to get the right fit with staff,” Ms Emery said. “In fact, I was struggling to find any staff at all who could flow with the growth of the salon.”

She found that many people in Bermuda preferred to follow the money into the corporate world, so the pool of potential hires was small.

Ms Emery persevered and today employs 12 Bermudians.

Last year, she started thinking about the future of Salon Pink. Many of her staff were moving up the ranks as senior stylists. She wanted to bring some fresh blood into the business.

Almost as soon as the thought crystallised, Toschella Trott appeared last July, looking for a job. After graduating from cosmetology school in Atlanta, the 24-year-old had been running her own hair styling business, Tamed by Tosh.

“We did not need to do a trade test,” Ms Emery said. “We had been stalking her social-media pages for some time. We knew what she could do.”

She was hired.

However, Ms Trott did have to take a short course on soft skills, customer service, retention and upselling.

A month after Ms Trott was hired, Ms Emery received a phone call. A young Bermudian stylist, Lauryn Dodd, 23, was looking for her first job.

“Five minutes later we saw her coming down the street to us,” Ms Emery said. “She was so sweet.”

Ms Dodd passed her trade test and was taken on board at the Parliament Street beauty shop.

Then early this year, Cristelle Doughty, 23, turned up.

She had graduated from beauty school in Toronto and after working there for a few months, wanted to settle back in Bermuda. Her speciality was colouring.

“I was looking for a job, and everyone kept saying go talk to Kidist,” she said.

Wondering what she would do with three junior stylists, Ms Emery put Ms Doughty through a trade test. She had to bring in different models to demonstrate her cutting and colouring techniques.

She passed the test and was hired.

Now, Ms Emery is enormously proud of her crop of young Bermudian stylists that seemed to come together organically.

She has a teaching background and is all about supporting young people who want to come into the industry.

“When I started out, the stylists were all older than me,” Ms Emery said. “I had no one to relate to.

“Then another girl started soon after I did and we became a team. These three all have their own energies and expertise but they have each other to lean on through the process of getting started.”

Ms Trott’s advice to other young people coming into the industry was to start at the bottom.

“Become a shampoo assistant,” she said. “That way when you advance, you will appreciate being at the top.”