Courtesy of Create To Heal 
“In The Chair” spotlights the incredible hairstylists and makeup artists in our community who are giving us major inspiration. Each week, they discuss their personal beauty and career journeys, what they’ve learned from their clients, and their top glam tips. This iteration is in partnership with ESSENCE’s Create to Heal initiative and Mayavana.
Your Next Hair Appointment/Cut can help Save-a-Salon in the Altadena Community. Donate here and here.
Not all heroes wear capes, but Geoff Cathcart has many to choose from. Barber’s capes, to be exact.
As a master barber, licensed real estate agent, and father of six, Cathcart approaches his work with care, precision, and a deep sense of responsibility to his community.
Today, that dedication meets a moment that will turn into a movement. His client, Ms. Carolyn Elaine Smith, 77, settles slowly into his chair. For nearly 20 years, her hair has gone untouched by any professional’s hands, or even her own.It is matted, heavy, and pulls at her neck with constant pain. The weight it carries is not just physical. It is emotional, mental, spiritual.“Hair care is a self-esteem lifter,” Cathcart says. “People come in not feeling their best, and you get to give them that feeling back.”
But this is more than a routine salon appointment. Both Cathcart and Ms. Carolyn are survivors of the controversial Eaton Fire, which on January 7th, 2025, tore through LA County’s small mountain town of Altadena, a historic bustling Black Southern California haven of hard-won ownership, connection, and community.
In less than 24 hours, the deadly flames reduced the entire city to ash, displacing generations of families overnight. Now a little more than a year later, this special day is part of a larger effort to support Altadena’s recovery.
ESSENCE, through its Create to Heal initiative led by Varsay Sirleaf, Senior Director of Community and Global Engagement, partnered with Myavana and Don’t Forget About Me to create a day of self-care for women impacted by the fires.
The experience was designed by Candace Mitchell, founder and CEO of Myavana, an AI beauty technology company focused on personalized hair and scalp care. Additionally, it was brought to life with Luis Burgos, founder of Don’t Forget About Me, whose organization provides beauty and wellness services to trauma survivors.
Local connection to Altadena survivors came through samantha stokes and Namane Mohlabane, who introduced ESSENCE and Don’t Forget About Me to two incredible organizations working on the front lines of recovery: the Black Freedom Fund, led by Marc Philpart, and the Shared Harvest Foundation/Dena Forward Alliance, led by Dr. NanaEfua Afoh-Manin.
At the center of the healing experience is Lawrence and Colbert Salon, Altadena’s oldest Black-owned salon, founded in 1978 by community pillar Lynn Lawrence. For decades, the salon has served as more than a place for hair care. It has been a multigenerational space of joy, stability, and entrepreneurship, serving as an anchor within the community.
While the building survived the fire, the majority of its clientele’s homes did not. “In a lot of ways, we’re starting over,” Geoff says. Still, Altadena remains deeply rooted in what it has always been.
Set against the foothills, the area is known for its natural wonders, breathtaking highland views, abundant kumquat, lemon, pomegranate, and oak trees, with an openness and warm diverse welcoming that longtime residents say is hard to describe until you experience it.
Geoff recently had a client travel up from Inglewood to support Altadena by getting his haircut at Lawrence and Colbert Salon.
When the client arrived, he stepped outside, taking in the mountains that still stand as a part of Altadena’s landscape, and stood stunned by the colorful bright green wild parrots flying through the sky in large loud flocks. “Man, this is so beautiful,” he said. “You really just don’t understand it until you see it for yourself,” Geoff adds.
For Ms. Carolyn, that beauty has always been about the people. “We take care of each other,” she says. “It’s like an enlarged family.” That sense of belonging is part of why she has stayed. As a single woman in her 40s, Ms. Carolyn purchased her Altadena home and spent three decades paying it off, finally owning it outright at the end of 2024. Less than two months later, it was destroyed in the LA Fires. Now, she plans to rebuild on the charred land. “Why would I go anywhere else?” she says. “This is my home.”
Back in the chair, her hair reflects everything she has carried, years of caregiving for her beloved 96-year-old aunt with dementia, along with the grief of losing her mother, life stress, and the physical impact of the fire’s toxic ash and debris that has never been washed or removed from her hair. “This isn’t just about an aesthetic of how it looks,” Geoff says. “This is about her health.”
With the cape settled, he turns his clippers on. The release is swift. “I immediately felt light,” Ms. Carolyn says, rolling her shoulders with relief. She studies her reflection, taking in thedecoding=”async” src=”https://media.essence.com/vxcjywbwpa/uploads/2026/05/Picture5.png” alt=”In The Chair With: Geoff Cathcart” width=”400″ height=”227″ /> How He Got Started:
Fresh out of high school, I needed a legal way to pay for school. I trained under Luke Walker at a local barbershop, and that’s where it clicked.
His Go-To Products: 
Bevel, Creed, Clubman. I’m old school, so also Murray’s.
His Top Healthy Hair Tip:
Start with the scalp. And watch your diet, it matters just as much.
What Being A Barber Has Taught Him:
Patience. Listening. People are carrying more than what you see. The Black male barbershop is often a place of psychology and therapy. It’s a safe environment where we come to discuss and vent about things we often don’t feel comfortable discussing anywhere else, with other men who can relate. From ages 5 to 80, there is such a wealth of knowledge shared.
His Favorite Styles To Do:
Flat tops, box fades, tapers, 360 waves, I’ve done them all. The funny thing is,rel=”tag”>In The Chair With
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Author: Akili King
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