Janelle Flatt

Before she became a third-generation hair stylist, Janelle Flatt, as a child, accompanied her mother to her job teaching cosmetology school. By age 12, Janelle was already answering the phone and sweeping floors at her mom’s salon. She began working as the salon receptionist before age 18, learning customers’ voices, names, and numbers in order to quickly and efficiently provide just what they needed.

While working full-time, Janelle continued her education and began promotional modeling in pageants. The day before her daughter was born, Janelle traveled to Austin to sit for her cosmetology license exam. She completed her apprenticeship and soon began building her own business.

“My grandmother always encouraged me to look my best because that makes you feel your best,” Janelle says. “She told me to put on my lipstick and heels and put a smile on my face. Her nickname for me was ‘Class and Sass.’”

In 2009, Janelle began traveling as an educator for hair extensions. She quickly moved up the ladder from being a local educator to national and then to international.

Beautiful Inside and Out

“We want to help women feel as beautiful on the outside as they are on the inside,” she says. “With hair extensions I may be working with a girl who has a bald spot or thinning hair. Nothing compares to the smile on her face when we help her overcome that challenge. It gives her confidence.”

While she enjoyed the work and excelled as an educator, Janelle later decided she wanted to spend more time with family closer to home. In 2017, she purchased a salon in Tanglewood and developed it into the award-winning home of the highest-quality cosmetic and hairstyle services.

“Collectively, we have over 100 years of experience and knowledge,” Janelle says of her first-class team. “We never stop learning and continue to attend classes and perfect our approach to every service we offer.”

Janelle Alexis Salon offers all the services you could look for at a salon but there’s nothing ordinary about their delivery. Hair offerings include everything from cut and style to color highlights, ombre, and corrective color. Five kinds of hair extensions are available. Hair treatments include Brazilian blowout, keratherapy, Japanese straightening, and more. Hair and makeup for weddings can be enjoyed at the salon or at the wedding venue.

In the hair coloring department, Janelle has become known as the “Blond Master.” It’s also no surprise that she excels with hair extensions. One of the stylists is an expert in balayage, a technique involving free-hand painting highlights onto the hair, creating a soft and natural gradation of lightness towards the ends. Another holds expertise in hair and makeup.

Janelle looks for stylists who connect well with clients and have good communication skills. She also seeks a hustle mentality that she knows is one of the keys to success.

Ongoing Education

Janelle herself sets a high bar for continuing education. She earned her associate degree in business administration and graduated magna cum laude with her bachelor’s degree in business management from University of Houston-Downtown. She is currently pursuing a master’s degree in strategic communications with an emphasis in media management.

Janelle prides herself in creating a more and more diverse environment with more and more new services, bringing on talented stylists who can work with multi-diverse ethnic skin and hair. Her team members are trained to accommodate every ethnicity.

Even while promoting education, learning, and stellar service, Janelle and her stylists create a family atmosphere at Janelle Alexis Salon. Their two emotional support dogs, Gizmo and Luna, welcome clients and share snuggles to make the experience relaxing as well as reinvigorating.

Sharing With the Community

While Janelle has clearly succeeded as a Leading Woman in business, she also shares her skills and learning on a volunteer basis. She handles hair and makeup for school shows at the Second Baptist Church’s Woodway location. For the Christmas show she does the same and also performs. She is a sought-after speaker for numerous meetings and conferences, sharing what she has learned about overcoming life’s struggles as well as the sacrifices women must make to achieve success.

Janelle also helps guide young women, especially high school students, often sharing the positives and negatives created by social media. Through prayer and educating parents, she helps them navigate the challenges of early adulthood in our technology-soaked culture.

As part of her salon team, Janelle takes on apprentices who learn the ins and outs of the business.

Here’s what Morgan Cruz said about her apprenticeship experience: “My biggest inspiration through all of this has definitely been Janelle. She’s been my biggest cheerleader, my motivator, my mentor, and a friend. She has shown me that really anything is possible. She has shown me that I can be a salon owner, an amazing hairstylist, a college graduate, an educator, and a mom all at the same time. She has shown me that the moon and the stars are reachable and to always say yes when fear tells me to say no.”

A strong believer in hard work and dedication, Janelle wants young people to experience empowerment, not entitlement. She tries to provide the knowledge for success and the grace to fail. She encourages them to stay true to their authentic selves.

It’s clear that Janelle is not the kind of person to rest on past achievements. She continues self-growth as she grows her business. Janelle Alexis Salon will soon launch a cosmetics brand offering lipsticks, lip stains, lip glosses, lip liners, foundations, BB creams, high-definition foundations, concealers, powders, brow shades, contours, eye shadows, mascaras, and a lip plumper. And right behind that she will release her own line of hair extensions.

As a Leading Woman, Janelle uses her many skills, her strong experience, and her faith to make Houston and her business better.