Our story
The heart & people behind

the movement.

The Vitality Project is what happens when you take ten-plus years of transformational retreats, 30,000 impacted careers through online coaching, hundreds of talks given to salon professionals, a viral TEDx Talk, and a documentary: turned into something every salon, school and beauty pro can access.

10+Years coaching
30K+Careers impacted
1M+TED Talk views
12K+Students trained
27Retreats hosted
The Vitality Project community
The first of its kind.

Built for beauty pros. By beauty pros.

The heart of our mission
01

Protect mental health & physical longevity

Resourcing beauty pros with practical, science-backed tools to protect mental health, emotional regulation and physical longevity, preventing burnout and increasing performance, success and health before burnout becomes career-ending.

02

Create a cultural standard

Building a cultural standard in beauty and wellness businesses, and industry-wide, that puts people and human wellness at the centre: because a healthy team is a thriving business.

03

Career longevity & retention

The ultimate solution for career longevity and the industry’s #1 tool for employee, team, student and career retention and recruitment for beauty and wellness salons, spas and schools.

Our mission

We believe

Beauty & wellness professionals change lives.

We are in the business of changing theirs.

Making accessible education and tools to teach beauty and wellness pros critical skills to protect their mental, emotional, spiritual, physical and career health.

A pathway to career longevity.

Change Is Calling, the film
Change is calling.
Beauty professionals together at a Vitality event

Beauty pros take care of so many. Who is taking care of them?

Beauty and wellness professionals change lives every single day. They are safe places for human connection. They are pillars in our communities and actualisers of beauty and wellness.

We have been known as an industry riddled with burnout, because service is what we do for a living. From hair to barbering to skin, nails and massage, we are known as a career that takes a toll on your body, mind and health. We know this is the best career, and with the right support with your health, wellness and vitality, it is a sustainable and abundant career.

The Vitality Project exists to close that gap. We take a decade of proven results, a proprietary framework and done-for-you curriculum, and put it directly into the hands of the schools training the next generation and the salons and spas employing them.

Elizabeth Faye on the TEDx stage
It started with a retreat.

How Hair Love Retreat grew into The Vitality Project.

The Vitality Project Hair Love

Hair Love was founded on changing lives, and the ripple effect that follows. It began by gathering real, raw connection and education at our retreats, and that sparked healing and purpose. Then the question came: how do I take Hair Love home?

So it spread into courses, certifications, masterminds and trainings that have helped thousands heal their businesses, bodies, mindsets and heartsets. And the question remained: how do I sustain it in my business, and share it? Now you can. That is The Vitality Project.

  • 27Retreats hosted
  • 2017The first Hair Love Retreat
  • 4Countries and counting
Our retreats → What is Vitality? →
Watch the film2 min, with sound
Decades in the making
The journey here. A divine timeline
2004

Her first mentor

A hairdresser becomes Elizabeth’s first mentor when she is a struggling teen: she does Elizabeth’s hair for free in trade for better grades on her report card.

2009

Becoming a hairdresser

Elizabeth starts working for that same hairdresser at Paul Mitchell the School, and the industry becomes home.

Elizabeth Faye early in her career, colouring a client at the salon
2011

Teaching at Paul Mitchell

Elizabeth becomes a beauty school teacher at Paul Mitchell School, the first time she stands in front of a room and teaches.

Elizabeth Faye teaching a class, working on a model in front of seated students
2013

A mom, and a blog

Elizabeth becomes a mom and starts building her blog while breastfeeding and working behind the chair.

Elizabeth Faye at home with her baby, in black and white
2014

The first courses

She creates her first courses and workshops. They flop, and they get her into filming and creating education.

Elizabeth Faye leading an early workshop around the tableElizabeth Faye teaching curling technique in her first course
2015

Workshops take off

Single mom, going through divorce, she starts teaching workshops all around the nation and opens her salon. Like the workshops, it takes off. She is helping hundreds of women across the country and building a big community.

Elizabeth Faye holding her son
2016

Behind the chair, and on the road

The salon and the workshops run side by side: behind the chair at Elizabeth Faye Salon, and on the road teaching.

Elizabeth Faye painting a client’s hair at the salonElizabeth Faye walking down Market Street pulling a suitcaseElizabeth Faye laughing beside the chair at Elizabeth Faye Salon
2017

Redken’s first global ambassador

After donating her time to Redken for free, she pitches them and becomes their first global ambassador. Workshops, Instagram, all of it is taking off.

The Redken ambassador line up featuring Elizabeth FayeElizabeth Faye holding Redken product as a brand ambassadorElizabeth Faye with the Redken team at a Redken Social event
2018

Hair Love Retreat launches. Then she gets sick.

She launches Hair Love Retreat. Then her health breaks: autoimmune, pre-diabetic, PCOS, chronic migraines, aching joints, chronic anxiety, while her partner battles severe depression.

Elizabeth Faye teaching a room of stylists as the Hair Love community startsElizabeth Faye and Derek with mics at a Hair Love and Redken eventThe Hair Love Retreat, a room of beauty pros with their hands in the air
2019

The RV tour, and the crash

On an RV tour across the nation they host a ton of events and build a big community. Her health comes crashing down with constant anxiety attacks, and she starts her health and healing journey.

Hands together in a circle on the road during the tourElizabeth Faye on the Hair Love Tour step and repeatThe Hair Love Retreat filmA panel on stage at a 2019 event, Redken backdrop
2020

The world closes. We lean in.

The world shuts down while she owns a salon, works behind the chair, coaches hairdressers and runs retreats, every business you would not want to be in. Instead of leaning back, they lean in and serve the community even more, hosting digital events for tens of thousands around the world.

Elizabeth Faye speaking to camera for the first digital retreat
2021

Back to events, and into healing

Events return, international retreats restart, and she launches her healing work.

A moment at the Hair Love Retreat, a room applaudingThe international healing retreatHair Love UniversityThe Sacred Stylist course launch
2022

Rejected from TED again

“I was rejected from TED Talks again.” Still filming the documentary and building the business, she becomes a certified life coach, helping people heal, and goes deep into breathwork.

The Hair Love Retreat, 2022The documentary launch
2023

The TEDx talk goes viral

The TEDx talk goes viral and the documentary launches. She sells the salon and starts building The Vitality Project, realizing the need for this work goes beyond retreats, courses and programs, into schools and salons. The community keeps asking, “How can we bring this back to our businesses?”

How Hairstylists Change The World, the TEDx talkThe Hair Love Retreat, 2023
2024

Launch

The Vitality Project launches. Some of the biggest schools in the nation take a chance on it, and it takes off.

The Hair Love Retreat, 2024Launching inside one of the biggest beauty school networks in the US
2025

Salons, and nine countries

Launch with salons: paid beta groups, and a beta across nine countries that shapes exactly how the app should work for salons. The school business doubles.

A Change Is Coming, The Vitality Project promo
2026

SalonCentric, and the big brands

A full partnership with SalonCentric and big brands launches, and the app and software go live. Twenty-seven retreats hosted across the journey, and the work continues.

Our founder’s story

This started
with one woman’s
transformation.

Elizabeth Faye is a retired hairstylist, salon owner, beauty school teacher and worldwide industry thought leader. She built a seven-figure brand, and then she got sick.

Burnout. Overextending. A body that couldn’t keep pace with a mission that wouldn’t slow down. That experience became the foundation for everything The Vitality Project is today.

As a three-time founder, TED Talk speaker with over one million views, and life coach to tens of thousands of beauty professionals, Elizabeth has spent over a decade proving that what is good for people is good for business.

The Vitality Project is her magnum opus: the culmination of everything she’s learned, built and healed, delivered as a system that any salon, school or beauty pro can use starting today.

Elizabeth Faye speaking on stage
I realised that everything I had been teaching, about leadership, wellness, emotional intelligence, needed a permanent home. Not just in my retreats. Not just in my courses. In every salon. Every school. Every career.
Elizabeth Faye
TEDx Talk 1M+ views “The industry needs this talk”: Elizabeth’s viral TED Talk on burnout, beauty, and what it means to truly thrive. Watch the talk ➞

The girl you call

When you want to bring heart

To your event stage!

Elizabeth Faye is one of the beauty industry’s most sought-after speakers, bringing her decade of expertise in wellness, community building, redefining culture in business, and heart-led leadership to stages worldwide.

  • Burnout Prevention & Career Longevity
  • People-First Leadership in Beauty Businesses
  • Building Cultures That Retain & Inspire
  • The Future of the Beauty Workforce
  • Nervous System Regulation for High Performers
  • Wellness as a Business Strategy
Hire Elizabeth Faye to speak
Elizabeth Faye

Bring heart, passion and wellbeing to your next event. A keynote speaker who makes your event unforgettable.

Meet the magic makers

The Vitality dream team

Behind The Vitality Project is a small and mighty team with a real stake in this industry. We build the tools, the spaces and the experiences where beauty professionals can thrive, grow and become the best version of themselves. Founded for beauty pros, by beauty pros.

Elizabeth Faye

Elizabeth Faye

Head of Vision & Wellness Magic

From high school dropout to single mom, the beauty industry was a safe haven for Elizabeth, and handed her a career and opportunities she never expected after a troubled youth. A health crisis as an adult made mental, emotional and spiritual health not just part of her work, but her work. Founder and creator of The Vitality Project, she is a hairdresser turned trauma-informed life coach, somatic practitioner, workplace wellness expert, keynote and TEDx speaker, and retreat host whose holistic approach has helped change more than 30,000 lives.

Derek

Derek

Head of Creative Media & Video

Derek is the creative lead behind every piece of the brand you touch: the design, the merch, the curriculum and textbook development, the stickers, and the cinematic films. A videographer for nearly two decades and a graphic designer, he is also Elizabeth’s beloved husband. Mental health is near and dear to him as someone who has struggled severely. He is a breathwork and somatic practitioner, and the practices Vitality teaches have quite literally been some of the tools that saved his life.

Kara

Kara

Head of Community & Client Success

Kara brings more than a decade of beauty industry and beauty school experience, including serving as a cosmetology school director. She develops curriculum, looks after our partners and our largest schools, helps run the community inside the app, and you might catch her at one of our events. A neurodiverse artist who has struggled off and on with her own mental health, she has found the practices taught in these programs and retreats have become part of how she lives, and she is a big part of the heart of Vitality.

Tiffany

Iain

Careers at The Vitality Project

Work for something

that deeply matters.

Because what you do matters too. We’re building the beauty industry’s first wellness infrastructure, and we’re always looking for passionate, mission-driven people to join us. If you care deeply about beauty professionals, wellness, and meaningful work, we want to hear from you.

View open positions Send your resume