Behind the Chair with Styles by Chelzz

By: Jazmyne Courtnii Byrd

Chelsea Battle was the kid who cut her dolls’ hair. Then she tried to put it back on. Then she started making her own little homemade “relaxers” just to see what would happen. “I was always experimenting and curious about how hair worked,” she says.

That curiosity stuck. It turned into a real passion, and then a career. Now she’s the stylist behind Styles by Chelzz, where she helps women feel confident and teaches them how to care for their hair so it stays healthy. She wasn’t thinking about entrepreneurship back then, but looking at it now, she can see the foundation was already there.

It hasn’t all been smooth, of course. Did she ever want to quit? “Absolutely.” There have been stretches when money was tight, business was slow, and she wasn’t sure she was making the right calls. She’s had to start over and rebuild more than once. “Entrepreneurship will test you in ways people don’t always see,” she says.

So what keeps her going? Something always seems to pull her back. A client raving about her hair. Someone who found her because they were looking for exactly what she does. Or just a feeling that she hasn’t seen what this business can really become yet. “I’ve learned that a difficult season doesn’t necessarily mean you’re on the wrong path.”

Being a Black woman in the hair industry matters to her, a lot. The beauty world has always been tied to Black women and Black culture, and for her, hair is about more than style. “Hair is more than just hair for us,” she says. It’s wrapped up in confidence, identity, self-expression, and how a woman shows up in the world. She’s a licensed cosmetologist who knows hair from both sides: she’s lived it, and she’s studied the science behind it. What she tells her clients is that they don’t have to pick between healthy hair and beautiful hair. “They can have both.”

The decision that changed everything was deciding to stop trying to be everything to everybody. For a while, she offered a long list of services because she felt like she had to accommodate everyone. Now she’s a lot more intentional about what she wants to be known for: healthy hair care, silk presses, treatments, and luxury extensions. Once she knew her specialty, it got easier to build a brand around the stylist she actually wants to be and the clients she wants to serve.

Five years from now, she sees Styles by Chelzz as a lot bigger than her standing behind the chair every day. She’ll still be a healthy hair specialist, but she wants to expand into luxury extensions and grow her extension brand, 1 Grade Up. Teaching is on the list too. She wants to show other stylists what she’s picked up over the years.

What excites her most is building something that lasts. “I don’t just want a successful salon business; I want to build brands that can continue to grow, create opportunities, and have an impact beyond me.”

Not bad for a kid who started out playing with her dolls.