Beauty Launchpad Magazine

MAY 2016

Brings the hottest beauty products and fashion trends to the salon and spa industry. Launchpad focuses on new products, tools and services for hair, skin, make up and nails.

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26 | BEAUTY LAUNCHPAD | MAY 2016 W hat really put me on the map in America was television," states José Eber. "I was doing makeovers at a time when they weren't being done. Everyone wanted magical makeovers. I made the everywoman feel beautiful." Eber has long been a lover of the beautiful—it's sort of hard not to be, especially when one is raised in Nice, the capital of the French Riviera. The son of self-described conservative parents defi ed convention and knew before he was a teenager what he wanted to be: a hairdresser. "I didn't choose hairdressing," Eber muses. "It chose me. I may sound funny saying it, but it's true: It was a calling." Eber apprenticed at a French salon in Berlin before he was 15, and later moved to Paris to apprentice there. At the time it was the law that all French men had to join the military for two years, so when he was discharged, he was 20 years old, full of expectation and skill— and no salons in Paris would hire him. "I couldn't get arrested!" Eber laughs, but reveals how tough it was for him. "I was on my own at this time, and I came across an ad in the paper for selling cookies door-to-door. And that's what I did, just for survival. I'm very proud of it!" he explains. Luckily a friend of a cousin helped him land a job at an upscale salon chain, fi rst in resort communities and later on the Champs-Élysées in Paris. "It was wonderful," he remembers. "I was surrounded by unbelievable talent. I'd still watch these stylists today." In 1974, Eber met a record producer from the States, who encouraged the young stylist to consider moving there. "He told me that I have the personality to go to America, but I'd never even thought about it. It was so far away," he smiles. Nevertheless, Eber joined his new pal and another friend from the military, and the three of them traveled to New York, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and San Francisco. "My visit in L.A. marked me to a point where I knew it was home," Eber reveals, explaining that the weather and landscape reminded him of his childhood. "I left Paris and came back to L.A." Then 26, Eber was ready to take on Los Angeles: "I thought to myself: I have shears, a comb, I'm French—I'll fi nd a job like that." Alas, no salons were willing to hire the young talent as anything other than an assistant. Again, as luck would have it, a friend helped him secure a spot in a Beverly Hills salon. "That was all I needed," he says, explaining that within a year, that salon was packed to the gills with celebrities—"But the person who really put me on the map was Farrah," he shares. Farrah Fawcett fi rst entrusted her legendary locks to Eber in 1977, and the two became fast friends, with Fawcett as his biggest fan. Not long after, A-listers like Cher, Jaclyn Smith and Goldie Hawn were regulars, and later his most famous client—Elizabeth Taylor—also became his best friend. Yet what Eber truly enjoyed—and still does—was creating looks for the everyday salon client, crafting styles that fi t her lifestyle, personality and face shape. "No one was talking about this at that time," Eber says, though this approach allows his guests to see themselves as they are. "One of my models for my second book, Beyond Hair, said, 'José didn't make me beautiful. He showed me that I already was.' It was the ultimate compliment." That feeling is the reason why Eber still does hair all these years later. "It's really great being a hairdresser," he shares with a smile. "We are chosen people. It is all meant to be. It's no accident." For more than four decades, José Eber has transformed women—from celebs to soccer moms—into the best versions of themselves. Now, with salon expansion on the horizon and revolutionary new products hitting the market, he's introducing a new generation to his vision. —AMY DODDS Conversations/ Profi les Makeover Master COURTESY OF JOSÉ EBER Eber dines with longtime friend and client, the legendary Elizabeth Taylor. A brash and debonair Eber José Eber with Farrah Fawcett, whom Eber credits for his seemingly overnight success

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