We recently had the chance to connect with Frances Druding and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Frances, thank you so much for joining us today. We’re thrilled to learn more about your journey, values and what you are currently working on. Let’s start with an ice breaker: What battle are you avoiding?
If I’m being honest, the biggest thing I’m battling right now is patience — or rather, the lack of it.
Running a business can feel like a rollercoaster: one day you’re on fire with ideas and hope, and the next you’re questioning everything. Imposter syndrome sneaks in and tells you that maybe you’re not good enough or that you don’t belong in the room. That voice makes it easy to lose patience with the process.
When the progress feels slow, I sometimes get sad — like maybe all the sacrifices aren’t paying off. Then I’ll get frustrated, even angry, because I want things to happen now. But inevitably I find myself back in that quiet place with God, and He reminds me that the waiting has purpose.
Those moments of surrender reveal why I started in the first place. Every time I see the people we serve feel better about themselves or when I see my team grow, I realize that the journey — the ups and downs — is shaping me into the leader I need to be. It’s still a battle every day to trust the timing, but faith gives me the courage to keep showing up and keep building.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I’m Frances Druding, the owner of Mira Bella Salon and the creator of our hair-and-scalp wellness line, Skin2Scalp.
Mira Bella started as a small salon suite with a big dream: to create a space where beauty isn’t just about hair — it’s about healthy hair and scalp, and how that impacts overall confidence and well-being. Over the years we’ve specialized in curly-hair care, advanced treatments, and scalp health, and that naturally led to developing our own product line, Skin2Scalp, which focuses on clean, multi-purpose solutions for common scalp issues like dryness, irritation, and psoriasis.
We’re now stepping into an exciting new chapter — expanding into a larger, dedicated location in Clearwater that will bring together everything I’ve envisioned for years: a high-end salon experience infused with scalp therapy, a Japanese-style head-spa, and a curated retail space that reflects wellness, beauty, and nature.
What makes our brand unique is that it’s truly an infusion of hair artistry and scalp health. We’re creating a destination where clients not only leave looking amazing but also feel better about the health of their hair and skin. This vision has been in the works for a long time, and it’s inspiring to finally see it come to life — proving that with persistence and purpose, dreams really can take shape.
Thanks for sharing that. Would love to go back in time and hear about how your past might have impacted who you are today. What did you believe about yourself as a child that you no longer believe?
As a child, I truly didn’t think I was smart enough.
I grew up in a home where love was present but sometimes hard to see. My father, who had his own difficult upbringing, didn’t always have the best parenting tools — and as a kid, I internalized a lot of the criticism and believed it meant I wasn’t capable or bright enough to succeed.
For a long time, that belief shaped how I approached school, friendships, and even opportunities later in life. I carried this quiet insecurity, always feeling like I had to prove myself.
As I grew older, and especially through building my own business, I realized that intelligence isn’t just about grades or knowing the right answers — it’s also about resilience, creativity, empathy, and vision. I now understand that what I once saw as shortcomings were really the experiences that built my grit and determination.
I don’t carry that old belief anymore. Instead, I see myself as capable and worthy — not despite my past, but because of it. That shift has been one of the most freeing parts of my journey.
What have been the defining wounds of your life—and how have you healed them?
One of the defining wounds of my life has been learning the hard way about friendships.
When I started my business, I believed that my friends would naturally rally behind me — that they’d be my biggest cheerleaders and clients. What I discovered was almost the opposite: a client will often become a friend faster than a friend will become a client.
Over the years I’ve been hurt by the promises of support that never materialized — friends who said they’d help but didn’t, or who quietly pulled away as I started to succeed. I had to come to terms with the reality that sometimes one person’s success can highlight someone else’s disappointments, and not everyone can be genuinely happy for you while they’re struggling themselves.
Healing that wound meant letting go of the idea that friendship has to look a certain way. I’ve learned to meet people where they are, to accept that their reactions often have more to do with their own journey than with me, and to place my energy into the relationships that feel reciprocal and life-giving.
Those lessons were painful, but they made me stronger and more grounded. I now surround myself with people — clients, colleagues, friends — who want to see me win, and I strive to be that kind of friend in return.
I think our readers would appreciate hearing more about your values and what you think matters in life and career, etc. So our next question is along those lines. What are the biggest lies your industry tells itself?
One of the things I think we’re missing right now is the visibility of true artists.
Social media has created this pressure that if you’re not constantly posting, trending, or going viral, somehow your talent doesn’t count. The emphasis has shifted so far toward being visible online that it’s become almost a requirement — even for hairstylists — to be an influencer before being recognized as an artist.
But the truth is, a curated feed doesn’t always reflect the real work. A reel can’t show how you listen to your clients’ stories, how you nurture them in your chair, or how you use your skills to help them heal from the inside out. A video doesn’t show the years of training, the empathy, the late nights learning your craft.
Long gone are the days when your skill set, your customer service, and the way you made people feel were enough to earn recognition. Now we often mistake an online persona for success. But just because someone’s content is polished doesn’t mean they’re the stylist who’s going to pour into you as a person or give you the hair transformation you deserve.
I believe it’s time to remember the human behind the chair — the artists who dedicate themselves to making people feel beautiful and whole. Social media can be a tool, but it should never be the measure of someone’s worth or artistry.
Before we go, we’d love to hear your thoughts on some longer-run, legacy type questions. If you retired tomorrow, what would your customers miss most?
If I retired tomorrow, I think my customers would miss so much more than just the hair services.
They’d miss the conversations — the laughter that fills the room, the tears we’ve shared, the little moments where they’ve felt truly seen. Over the years, my chair has become a safe space for healing as much as for beauty.
There’s something sacred about the bond that forms when one human helps another heal in ways that can’t be planned or rehearsed. I believe God places certain people in our path for a reason — sometimes He knows the exact words of comfort, the right perspective, or even the silence that someone needs to hear, and He puts that in the heart of the person sitting behind them with a comb in their hand.
That’s what I think they’d miss most: not just the hair transformations, but the feeling that they were cared for in body, mind, and spirit — that someone was there to listen, to laugh, to give them hope when they needed it most.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.mira-bella.us
- Instagram: franciembsalon
- Facebook: franciembsalon
