Erin Gardner
Salon Owner & Educator • Covet & Mane Since 2020
“I just knew it wasn’t enough. I was ready for something bigger, and I was ready for something different.”
— Erin Gardner, Owner, Gardner & Co Salon
Erin Gardner joined the Covet Collective in 2020, buying her first Covet & Mane hair while working out of a home salon in Minneapolis. What started as a single high-ticket specialty has since grown into Gardner & Co Salon in Minnetonka, Minnesota, and led Erin somewhere she never expected: to the front of the classroom as an educator for Concealed by Covet & Mane.
Her story is not one big break. It is a chain of decisions, each building on the last, from stylist to salon owner to educator, with The Concealed by Covet & Mane Method as the throughline connecting every stage.
01 — THE STYLIST
Passionate Isn’t the Same as Fulfilled
Before Covet & Mane, Erin’s days looked like most stylists’ days: booked chairs, steady color appointments, a full calendar. She loved the work. But love and momentum aren’t the same thing, and for a few years she had plenty of one and very little of the other. She was coming out of the hardest stretch of early motherhood, the years she calls survival mode, when just getting through the day well is its own win.
Then 2020 rearranged everything. Erin began working from home, a shift that made sense for her family, and in that same disruption made a decision that had nothing to do with survival: she’d start offering high-ticket extension services. It wasn’t a plan so much as instinct — a sense that something in her career was finally ready to move.
“I don’t want to say I wasn’t passionate about what I did. I love my job, but I was just kind of doing it.”
— Erin Gardner
02 — DISCOVERING THE BRAND
When the Hair Does the Selling
Erin didn’t find Covet & Mane through a sales rep or a trade show booth. She found it the way most stylists do: by seeing the hair itself and not being able to stop thinking about it. She bought her first bundles, installed them, and felt something shift.
The quality sold itself, then kept selling, pulling her past the product and into everything built around it: the method, the education, a community of stylists who talked about the brand less like a vendor and more like a professional home.
“It was your marketing. It was the experience that drew me initially. I used the hair, and I loved the hair, and then I knew I just wanted to know more about it.”
— Erin Gardner
03 — THE EXPERIENCE
Where ‘Good Enough’ Ran Out
The turning point didn’t happen in her salon. It happened in a room full of other stylists, during a visualization exercise at Covet & Mane’s inaugural The Experience, when Erin was asked to picture her year exactly as it was already headed. The easy answer came fast: a profitable, simple home salon, low overhead, a life that already worked. Sitting with it, though, Erin felt the truth just as fast — it wasn’t enough. Not because it was failing, but because she was ready for something the current version of her business couldn’t hold.
Extensions gave that readiness a direction: doing the work properly meant she’d need an assistant, and needing an assistant meant needing a space built for more than one chair. A single service decision had quietly become the blueprint for an entirely different business, and Erin left already building it in her head.
“Covet & Mane extensions launched me, because I had the tools and had the idea of which direction I wanted to go with my business.”
— Erin Gardner
04 — BUILDING THE BUSINESS
Building the Confidence to Charge Your Worth
Opening Gardner & Co Salon meant stepping into the part of ownership no certification prepares you for: the anxiety of not knowing everything and having to act anyway, of pricing your work with confidence before you’ve fully seen what your business can become. Erin leaned into that discomfort instead of waiting for it to pass, and has come to see the mental game of ownership as its own kind of training.
As her team grew, she built it around one standard instead of individual style: every stylist working from the same foundation, so any guest in any chair would get the same level of care and the same quality of result. That consistency became the identity of the salon itself.
“Business ownership is just such a mental game. It was getting over the anxiety of not knowing 100% what you’re doing, but doing it anyway and figuring it out.”
— Erin Gardner
05 — GROWING A CERTIFIED TEAM
She Didn’t Go Alone — She Brought Everyone
When it came time for in-person Concealed Method training, Erin didn’t go alone. She brought her whole team to Arizona, so stylists who’d never seen a career like this could know it was possible for someone from their hometown too. She wanted them to see it firsthand: a room of stylists learning together, a future that had less to do with money than with the kind of life it could build.
The impact came home with them. Clients noticed almost immediately, especially in the details that used to require a workaround: hair worn further forward without a visible part, more fullness framing the face, results that read as effortless because the technique underneath it finally was.
“I wanted the girls to see what was possible. It’s not all about money, but it is about the kind of life that you want.”
— Erin Gardner
06 — BECOMING AN EDUCATOR
From Learning It to Teaching It
Erin’s own path through certification shaped the educator she wanted to become. She’d already worked through the online coursework before her in-person training, which meant she arrived with real questions instead of a blank slate. What stayed with her most was the hands-on part: being a model, feeling the method installed on her own head, learning what too tight actually feels like from the inside.
She left convinced that stylists are kinesthetic learners first, and that no amount of watching replaces the moment your hands are doing the work. Now stepping into the classroom herself, Erin is watching for that same moment in every new stylist: the instant something clicks.
“I’m just looking forward to sharing my excitement and my passion for it, seeing those aha moments that I know we all had as we were getting educated.”
— Erin Gardner
07 — THE JOURNEY AT A GLANCE
Stylist to Salon Owner to Educator
For Dafina Smith, Founder and CEO of Covet & Mane, Erin’s journey reflects the very reason she created Covet & Mane Studios and Academy in New York City: to give stylists a space to dream bigger and see what could be possible for themselves.
“Erin’s connection at The Experience is the embodiment of why I created Covet & Mane Studios and Academy in NYC. I wanted to create a space that dared people to dream and think bigger for themselves, in a city that is resilient, diverse, and intense. Erin being from the same Minneapolis suburb as me created an immediate connection, and I’m incredibly grateful and proud of her for showing up, growing, and trusting our brand to be part of her story.”
— Dafina Smith, Founder and CEO of Covet & Mane
Matt Pestorius, Chief Revenue Officer for Covet & Mane, sees Erin’s journey as a powerful example of what’s possible when talent is matched with dedication, consistency, and real business savvy.
“Erin has always been willing to put in the work, trust the process, and apply what she learns. Even more, seeing a vision of what could be possible for her, then taking the leap, has made all the difference. Watching her grow from a home salon to opening her first salon and now opening an even bigger space, while also becoming a Covet & Mane educator, has been incredible. Her success isn’t accidental. She’s proof of the kind of growth that’s possible when you stay committed to your craft, your business, and the processes that help you get there.”
— Matt Pestorius, Chief Revenue Officer, Covet & Mane
08 — RESULTS AT A GLANCE
Some stylists build a business around a brand. Erin built a career, a team, and a classroom around it — and she’s just getting started.
“I think of Concealed by Covet & Mane as essentially a vehicle to get you there.”
— Erin Gardner