Sydney “Syd” Piper stands at her beauty booth inside Nikki’s Creative Hair Designs in downtown Rochester. Photo by Libby Hubbard.

By Libby Hubbard
InkFreeNews

ROCHESTER — Sydney “Syd” Piper said her career in hair cutting and styling has grown from a passion discovered after high school into a steady business, serving the men and women of Rochester and their families.

“I graduated from Rochester High School in 2011 and went straight to beauty school that August,” Piper said. “I finished at Summit Salon Academy in Kokomo in 2012, and I’ve been doing hair ever since.”

Piper works out of Nikki’s Creative Hair Designs, 804 Main St., where she said she offers men’s and boys’ haircuts, beard trimming, and women’s cutting and styling services.

“I’m always excited to meet new people and see new faces,” she said. “I do have an online booking website, and I take walk-ins too.”

After starting her career focusing on women’s hair, Piper said she shifted toward barbering.

“I did women’s hair for the first six years or so, and then I’ve been barbering for the past five or six years,” she said. “I just prefer short hair, clipper cuts, barbering style. One and done. Easy, fast. No color, no nothing.”

The change brought steady growth. “There was a point in time in doing hair, it did feel very defeating because there are a lot of salons and shops around here,” Piper said.

“But I stuck with it and now I’m blessed to do over a hundred haircuts a week.”

Piper said the job is about more than cutting hair.

“There’s trust within it, because that’s something they have to walk around all day looking like,” she said. “Some of the people I cut, I’ve been cutting them for 10 years. I’ve been through a lot with them — marriages, divorces, children, job changes. I become a mini-therapist sometimes.”

Piper said her choice to remain in Fulton County was shaped by the community she has built through her work.

“I’ve thought about moving away, but I’ve spent the last 13 years building my clientele,” she said. “Moving out of town would definitely be like starting all over. It’d be career suicide.”

Her father, Eric, is a lifelong Fulton County resident and farmer. Her mother, Emily, grew up in Fort Wayne, and her grandparents, Richard and Cozetta Piper, are longtime Fulton County farming community members.

Family is another reason Piper said she chose this career path.

“Kind of why I chose this path was to be my own boss,” she said. “Flexibility with kids being in school and sports. Here, I make my own hours.”

Piper also has two sons, born in 2019 and 2022.

“I was just able to go on a field trip with my (oldest) son on Wednesday,” she said. “That’s the freedom this job provides.”

Piper works Tuesday through Saturday, typically by appointment, and is scheduled regularly from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

“We are reaching the slower season with summer being over and kids back in school, so I’m always really excited to take on new clients,” she said.