As educator extraordinaire JCarlos speeds across the country from California to Chicago, or even down to Mexico, he always has his trusted assistant, Panchito with him. Named after the Mexican war hero Pancho Villa, Panchito travels for free, never takes up a seat and helps lower JCarlos’s unavoidable carbon footprint. Oh, and he will ride a horse or take up arms because Panchito is JCarlos’s Ping, mixing all his color formulas to perfect consistency in seconds.
‘Panchito comes everywhere with me because he frees me up to focus on my vision while he does the legwork,’ says JCarlos, the multi-lingual Mexican-born but now US-based resprenting ECOHEADS products as well as Olaplex, Malibu C, Trionics and Nutrapel. ‘Panchito makes my job so much easier, not just because he does the mixing, but because he does it so well. I bought Panchito from Sustain Beauty Co as soon as they launched The Ping. It was only later that I became an ambassador for the brand and I did so because I love Panchito. I’m just about to buy Ping number two so I can make multiple mixes at the same time.’
Busy as he is traveling, JCarlos has still managed to build up a library of videos on Facebook and Instagram that are watched avidly by hundreds within hours of being posted. He has massive engagement, often touching 20% of his followers, twice the average and expertly responds to each person in their native tongue. His following is naturally due to his work being clean and flawless, but it is also due to his ability to talk to various audiences. In his Live sessions, he will slip from English to Spanish and back to English effortlessly, based on the language the question was phrased in.
‘I try to answer in the language of whoever has posted, with Live or as I reply when browsing later,’ adds JCarlos, who was born Juan Carlos Pimentel in Mexico and first came to America as a teen in the early 2000s for a better life and to follow his dream of becoming a stylist. He gained American citizenship in his 20s and has been intent on sharing his expertise across North and South America ever since.
JCarlos now splits his time between his home base in Illinois, regular trips back to Mexico and travelling around the continent delivering educating in Spanish and English. Upcoming appearances include Hawaii, Texas and San Francisco. Plus he has set up a company to consolidate his teachings – JCarlos Hair Revolution – and is backing a new movement – Artistas a La Obra – to help drive excellence. And as if he wasn’t busy enough, as well as a suite in Illinois he has a second one in California to service his rapidly growing clientele.
‘I liked working in a salon but I am traveling so much as an educator, it is better for me to be independent. And I want to do as much as I can to reduce my impact on the world while giving my clients what I know is the best service. That means installing ECOHEADS showerheads in my suite because it uses less water while guaranteeing clean water for rinsing.
I couldn’t insist on that in someone else’s salon,’ he explains. ‘But if you use the water straight from the faucet it has chlorine and other minerals in it, which immediately starts drawing the color from the hair and making it fade. My ECOHEADS showerhead ensures only pure water goes on my client’s head, and that it rinses quickly, speeding up the process and preserving the color. Like my Panchito, it gives me and my client more time.’
JCarlos’s second Ping, The Monochromatic Special Edition Ping, is on its way to join Panchito just in time for his trips to Hawaii and Texas, and it already has a name.
‘I’m going to call it Chachita after Evita (Chachita) Muñoz, who was a famous actress, practically an institution in Mexico when I was little,’ he says. ‘And both Chachita and Panchito will be coming with me everywhere.’
