Hairdressing gave Kyle Castille the opportunity he couldn't find in mainstream education. Here's how he's turning his own setbacks into opportunities for the next generation…
"School wasn't for me at all," Kyle Castille doesn't hesitate to tell us when we catch up about his career. In fact, long before he was diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia, he knew he learned differently and knew education wasn’t where he belonged. Instead, it was Saturdays spent sweeping floors in his uncle's salon that quietly changed everything.
Kyle started working in the salon at just 12 years old before his school recognised he was thriving far more than in the classroom. By Year 9, he was studying hairdressing full-time at college alongside his GCSEs, leaving school already qualified before completing his Level 3. Looking back, he credits the teachers who refused to give up on him. "They recognised school wasn't an enjoyable, progressive place for me," he says. “I was very lucky that I had teachers that didn't give up on me.”
But life moved quickly. Kyle left home at 16, worked in a local salon, and before long had boarded a one-way flight to Gran Canaria with just £200 in his pocket. "It was literally major life milestones all at once," he laughs.
After returning to the UK, Kyle opened his first salon only to lose everything following a relationship breakdown. A brief spell working for the ambulance service helped him save enough money to start over, convincing a landlord to let him rent an existing salon despite having no deposit. "I promised I'd make it work," he tells us. "I even slept at the salon at times because I was so determined!"
Just as the business began to find its feet, the building was unexpectedly earmarked for redevelopment, forcing Kyle and his growing team to relocate almost overnight. Friends, clients and family rallied together to move the salon, reopening just 24 hours later in a bigger premises that would eventually allow the business to grow.
It was there that Kyle's career took an unexpected turn. After meeting a young girl struggling with mainstream education and severe mental health challenges, he began navigating the process of creating an alternative learning pathway within his salon. That experience inspired him to train as a teacher himself. "I looked at where the industry was going and realised there was a gap," he explains.
Today, that idea has evolved into a 42-chair salon with a team of 42, many of whom either returned to the industry after time away or struggled in traditional education before finding a place in hairdressing. Last year, the business surpassed £1 million turnover. Yet for Kyle, the numbers aren't the biggest achievement. "I've changed people's lives and they've changed mine," he says. "It all came from that one girl – she’s still my biggest inspiration."
Alongside salon life, Kyle has built a social media audience of more than half a million followers simply by showing the reality of salon life. Rather than creating polished content, he chose authenticity. "I thought, if I was looking for someone to follow, I'd want someone who's just being themselves," he says. Three videos later, he woke up to hundreds of thousands of followers and partnerships with a range of brands including Beauty Works and Neal & Wolf.
Despite running a large team and creating content daily, Kyle still spends most of his week behind the chair. Every morning starts with a meeting with his management team before supporting the salon's self-employed junior stylists, helping them develop not only technical ability but confidence, customer service and business skills. "We're not just selling hair," he says. "We're selling a feeling."
Of course, the journey hasn't been without challenges. Kyle admits that feeling like an outsider within the industry has often been difficult, particularly coming from a working-class background and never feeling the need to fit a particular mould. Yet he believes those experiences have shaped the culture he's created inside his own salon. "It's about inspiring people who've been told they're not enough all their life," he says.
When we ask about his proudest moment, the answer isn't an award or a viral social media post, it's moving into the salon's current premises. "That was the moment where I thought, 'You've done it'," he says. "Everything I'd set out to do suddenly felt real."
His advice to the next generation? Embrace what makes you different. "Nobody can do you better than you," he says. "That's your golden ticket to success." He also encourages young hairdressers not to fear complaints. "They're coming, whether you like it or not," he laughs. "The way you respond to them is what makes you the hairdresser you become."
As for what's next, Kyle has no plans to slow down. Alongside growing his social platforms, he's working to establish a recognised qualification pathway for self-employed junior stylists – one that teaches not only technical skills but business, finance and work-life balance too. "This is where the industry is going," he says. "We're giving hairdressers the tools to build careers on their own terms." It feels like a fitting next chapter for someone who's spent his entire career rewriting the rules.
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