A Message From Board President

“Hi! My name is Sami, the president of Cosmetologists of Washington United Board of Directors.

I started my career in 2011, graduating from Gene Juarez. After high school I knew I wanted to do something creative, such as hair or makeup but wasn’t sure. My friend encouraged me to take a tour of Gene Juarez to see how I felt, and after touring I remember feeling so excited to start. I ended up graduating in 2011 and from there worked at an hourly salon, commission salon, to now being a leaser. I currently work at Winslow salon in down town Kirkland. I’ve been there for 5 years now and I love what I do!!

How did it all get started with COWU you may wonder? Well — let’s just start off by saying I had no idea what this adventure entailed and all the knowledge I would gain with how our local government and legislatures work. So in 2019 a bill (SB 5326) started to float around that I heard was going to hugely affect our industry.

I thought, ‘How do I even fight this? Who do I call? ‘ Which luckily my boyfriend and I have a family friend who used to be a lobbyist, so we called him up and said where do we even start? He gave us so much helpful information, such as gathering other people who would be affected by this bill and to call our local legislators. So then my boyfriend and I decided to start a Facebook group for people to come to so we could ask questions, & spread awareness about 5326. From that night on I had hundreds of people coming to the page to gain information and to discuss how we were going to stop this bill!  It became a little overwhelming for me to manage as well as making sure people were spreading factual knowledge. That’s when D’Arcy, Michelle, and Rae started sending me Facebook messages to see if they could help in any kind of way. I was so so thankful for these women and Megz White also ended up coming into our group as well. From then we started working together and figuring out the first steps of hiring a lobbyist, being transparent, becoming a non-profit,—- all this while fighting bills and learning what steps we needed to take next. It’s been a whirlwind to say the least but I’m so thankful to have been a part of such a huge movement in the beauty industry.”

WANT TO JOIN OUR RAG TAG TEAM OF ADVOCATES AND VOLUNTEERS???

We Need Special and Powerful Personal Services Operators and Businesses LIKE YOU to go ALL IN so we can consistently afford a legislative lobbyist like we did in 2022 with Brooke Davies. Enlisting our formidable grass roots activism AND an insider lobbyist is KEY to protecting and elevating the interests of this industry! Enroll as an ADVOCATE with COSMETOLOGISTS OF WA UNITED for $79/yr HERE

… Or DONATE HERE