Who is Bex Irvine?

Hi, I’m Bex. I’m a hairstylist, and I built bex+Co.^® so beauty pros could keep more of what they earn, own their time and build a real future doing what they love.

If you’re a beauty pro or a future salon owner who wants to know who’s behind bex+Co.^® before a tour or a call, you’re in the right place. Just booking a hair appointment? You’ll find every stylist on our salon pages.

Here’s how it all happened, in my own words...

Where did Bex Irvine start?

I was a kid who grew up without much, and cosmetology school was my way in. We sometimes didn’t have hot water, and college never felt like an option for me. Luckily, I loved cosmetology school.

I got to work at a big salon on Fifth Avenue in New York City. After that I worked in commission salons and suite salons. I really worked everywhere.

Then I moved to Austin and became the top performer at one of the city’s best-known salons. I loved working there, so I asked how I could earn more of what I was bringing in. They told me I was welcome to work as many hours as I wanted. That wasn’t the answer I was looking for.

Why did Bex build bex+Co.?

Stylists were doing the hard part while the salon kept most of the money and every decision, so I built a place where they could keep more. Their clients come from them, and they know how to market. When I asked how I could keep more of my hard-earned money, I was told to work more hours.

I wanted a place where beauty pros could run their own business, keep more of what they earn and still have real support: a beautiful space, business education and other pros beside them. I looked. It didn’t exist. So I made it. In 2015, I opened the first bex+Co.^® salon in Austin and called it a Shared Workspace Salon™.

My only goal back then was somewhere cool for me and my friends to work. I wasn’t a business owner yet, so I learned everything I could, and I taught every stylist in my space to run their business too.

What is Bex’s mission?

My mission is freedom of time, freedom of money and freedom of purpose for every beauty pro. That means you keep more of what you earn, you decide when you work and you build something that’s truly yours.

I want stylists to have time with their kids, take real vacations and own their homes. Some of the pros I work with are the first person in their family to ever buy a house. That’s the change I built bex+Co.^® for.

It’s also why bex+Co.^® is a community. Going independent shouldn’t mean going it alone. You get an elevated place to work, education that keeps you growing and other pros who want to see you win.

I love suites, too. They’re great for someone who wants a quiet space of their own. bex+Co.^® is for pros who want to keep learning with people around them.

What happened to bex+Co. in March 2020?

March 2020 was the moment every stylist I knew wanted to be self-employed. A lot of Texas stylists who worked as W-2 employees lost their jobs on March 20, 2020. They’d taken those jobs because working for someone else felt safe, and it turned out it wasn’t.

I built the system five years earlier, so I was ready. I opened two more salons during the shutdown, and kept going from there. I wrote the whole story in is a salon job really safer than being self-employed.

What does Bex teach beauty pros?

Freedom takes more than a workstation, so I teach the business and money side in my Beauty Empire Blueprint course: running your business, buying a home as a self-employed person, saving for your kid’s college and setting up a Roth IRA. These are the things beauty school never taught us. Ask a tax pro or a lawyer before you act on any of it.