Sydney McKeough isn’t your average 12-year-old. The middle schooler already thinks beyond her day-to-day responsibilities as a student and envisions bigger and better things for herself. Chief among them: a hairstyling business.
Instead of waiting until she gets older to turn her passion into a career, Sydney is getting started early — and if her classmates are any indication, business is booming.
Sydney’s mom, Leslie McKeough, is a therapist running her own practice based in town. Lately, she’s also become something of a manager for Sydney and her burgeoning business.
Leslie explains that Sydney has always enjoyed doing different hairstyles. She became interested in figuring out how to do braids and other styles herself, teaching herself with YouTube videos and sheer practice. She began to channel that interest into doing her friends’ hair, and what had begun as a hobby quickly became something more. With a babysitter certification in hand, Sydney’s hair business has achieved liftoff.
So far, Sydney has done birthday parties and other events, like a Hanukkah event at a local synagogue. She also volunteered to do the hair for the “Beauty and the Beat” school production earlier this month.
“It’s really been incredible to watch her as a mom, right, to just see the progress,” Leslie said. “It started as a hobby and just something fun, and she would braid my hair all the time. Watching her, you know, start this business with her passion. It’s just been really incredible to watch her.”
While Sydney may not be raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars quite yet, the business is off to a strong start, Leslie said.
Sydney is a “big saver,” she explained, putting any money she earns from doing hair into the bank.
“She’s excited and feels really proud of herself and empowered for being able to start this at such a young age,” Leslie said.
While she spoke to 01940 The Magazine, Sydney was busy juggling many requests from friends and classmates as they prepared to go on stage for the dress rehearsal of “Beauty and the Beast.”
But, unfazed by the chaos around her, Sydney pressed on, embodying the phrase emblazoned on her T-shirt, “Keep calm and let Sydney handle it.”
That phrase, she explained, has become a bit of a mantra, and she wears the shirt for almost every single one of her jobs.
On this particular afternoon, Sydney is working on what she said is her favorite style: a Dutch braid.
The first braid she learned, Sydney explains she takes pride in mastering the ostensibly more difficult technique.
“Everyone said French braids are easier because that’s how most people start out. Dutch braids… are the base for many braids… that’s kind of why I love (them,)” she said.
Sydney explains that it’s the process of doing someone’s hair — her own or that of a friend — that appeals to her.
“The reason I like doing this is because I like the way I do it, being gentle,” she said. “I just like the way it works.”
“I hate when people hurt you when they’re doing your hair because it shouldn’t be that way, that getting your hair done should be painful or anything like that,” she added.
Sydney said she is self-taught, relying on YouTube videos to get a basic sense of what a particular braid or hairstyle should look like and then figuring it out on her own from there. She admits the process can get aggravating sometimes, especially when working on her own hair.
But seeing the final result come together makes it all worth it.
“The best part about it is just like seeing it come together,” she said. “I just like seeing how it comes out. I like the feeling of accomplishing something. There are not many activities I really love, but this is one of them. And this is definitely my favorite thing to do.”
Up next for Sydney: getting into Essex Tech for high school and enrolling in the cosmetology program. While she waits for high school to roll around, Sydney has no plans of slowing down.
