The LocLady

by Michael Kinney

At the age of 12, Brandi Danielle Cox’s father taught her a valuable lesson. At that point, she had been styling hair for half her life but had just been doing it for fun. It was something she just loved doing.

However, when Cox’s father saw how much time she was spending working on other people’s hair, he imparted one of those life-changing moments that are normally only seen during a family sitcom in the 1990s.

“I was already doing everybody’s hair at recess and then after school and some kids would come to my house. I was braiding everybody’s hair on the front steps,” Cox said. “And (my father) was like, ‘You owe me some money for that.’ So my father first made me pay him $5, seriously, when I was 12 years old. So my father turned it into a business.”

Up until that point, styling hair was just a fun hobby for the young Cox. But once her father started charging her rent, the entrepreneurial side suddenly kicked in.

“I was doing it for fun,” Cox said. “And then he made me understand and realize that there were people paying for it. And so he was right. So I started charging just a meager $10 for some braids at 12 years old. And I had to give my dad $5.”

That business lesson has stayed with Cox. The 35-year old, third-generation Langston University graduate now has her own salon called B.U. Locs & Styles in Del City.

Instead of young middle school classmates to work on, she has a clientele list of around 160 women and men who regularly come to her for braids and other hairstyles and hair care.

“I did hair in my parent’s home up until I graduated high school,” said the Oklahoma City native. “I worked my way up until I was charging about $45 at my parents’ house, still doing braids and things like that. But then I started going to school for it. So then I got the knowledge base behind it, working in a couple of salons and things like that. But yeah, my dad started me off for the business. After that, I haven’t turned back. I knew it was a business now.”

While Cox knows it’s a business, she says that’s not what keeps her doors open and or her clients dedicated. She says it takes more than business sense to work 12 to 14 hours a day, seeing at least 50 customers a week.

“People know I care and people know that I’ve worked hard to brand my look and my business,” Cox said. “So it’s something that is a passion of mine. I think people see love, they see the care. So you would rather have somebody that you know loves something that they do versus somebody just doing it for a paycheck. I mean, the money is good. Don’t get me wrong, but I really love what I do. And I think that’s what makes me stand out. People know I love it.”

As someone who owns her own business, Cox says she would tell any up and coming entrepreneur that they better have a passion for what they do or it will eat them up.

“Please love what you’re doing or you’re going to burn yourself out. You’re never going to continue it because it’s hard work,” Cox said. “It’s hard work working for yourself. It’s hard work. You have to do everything. You’ve got to be the mean person. You’ve got to be the nice person. You got to be payroll, HR (Human Resources). I mean, it’s a lot of work. And if you don’t have the love in it, you’ll burn yourself out faster than anybody on any regular job. That’s in anything. It’s better for you to love what you do out there.”

However, when Cox first got the itch to start styling hair, it had nothing to do with love. It was more about self-preservation.

Like many young girls, it was her mother who initially worked on her head growing up. She came to dread those hours.

“It hurt,” Cox said. “I understand that about a lot of children and the trauma that is associated with getting their hair done as children. And I went through the same thing. I was traumatized by it. I didn’t want to, I feared it. I didn’t want to get my hair done. She did a good job. It just was painful. And now that I do other children’s hair I see the same trauma in them as well, but that was lack of knowledge. My mother didn’t necessarily have the patience as a professional would with hair. So a lot of different factors played into why she wasn’t the best at hair.”

Currently, Cox runs B.U. Locs & Styles out an office building (3945 SE 15th St.) in Del City. That means, just like when she was a kid, she is paying rent to someone else.

But recently Cox had to shut down her salon for 31 days due to the city and state regulations regarding COVID-19. She said during that time away, it made her realize just how much she isn’t in total control of her own business.

“My initial dream is an in-home salon, so I could have one overhead and truly run my business how I want,” Cox said. “If I was in my home, it would have been up to me and my own discretion if I chose to take clients in. I probably wouldn’t have, but it still would have been up to me. And I would still essentially be my own boss. I’m not my own boss now. So the overall goal and the push is to be my overall boss and paying myself in every way possible. So yeah, Corona just opened my eyes, really. It opened my eyes to the fact that I do run a business, but my business is still heavily dependent upon somebody else. So it made me just reaffirm my goals.”

The goal for Cox is to purchase land so she can build her a new home for her and her salon.

“I’m in the process of looking and building and finding my builder because I think 2021 is my year,” Cox said. “I would like to do it before 2020 is over and take advantage of the real estate and the market right now. But I’m not going to rush it, so I just do it when it’s time, but I’m actively looking right now. I don’t like making moves in haste, so I’m just taking my time.”

During her growth as a stylist, Cox has learned more afraid of success than they are of failure. That was her for a long time.  

But now Cox knows her potential and knows what she is worth and doesn’t have plans to let fear get in her way.  

“I think the big push now in entrepreneurship is freedom. So with an understanding of freedom, though, you have to understand with freedom, you have to love yourself and anything that you do to truly find where you’re free, where you fit,” Cox said. “So with loving everything that you do, and then also loving yourself so that you can maximize and understand your full potential. A lot of us don’t understand our full potential, so we want to be entrepreneurs, but that’s like me, I want to be an entrepreneur, but now I’m at the point where I’m too big. I have, it’s too big. I need a protege. I need to expand. So a lot of times we’ll stop just here. I can’t stop here. The demand, for me, is growing.”