“Yes, I stole a credit card. Yes, bad things happened to me. A lot of it was my choice. Once I accepted that, things started to change.”
For Joshua Lucero, accountability was the turning point. Today, he owns one of Salt Lake City’s most inclusive and successful salons, but the path there began in poverty, family conflict, and a year behind bars.
Lucero grew up in Phoenix, raised mainly by his grandmother. “We were lMormon, kind of Jack Mormon, but I was the perfect kid that followed every rule.” His relationship with money was shaped by scarcity. “I never got an allowance. A hundred dollars felt like a lot, but when I had it, I’d spend it, and then I’d feel guilty I spent it.”
In his late teens, the family moved to Utah. Around the same time, he came out as gay. His mother was accepting, but his grandmother, who had raised him, was not at first. “We lived together and didn’t talk for six or seven months.” Home life became tense, and his sense of stability began to crack.
At 19 or 20, Lucero made what he calls one of the worst decisions of his life: stealing a friend’s credit card. It led to his first felony and 30 days in jail. A year later, when a severance check from a company that went under bounced, prosecutors accused him of passing a fraudulent check. “One day, 15 federal marshals came to the house. I was a 20-year-old little gay kid. It was unnecessary.” That second felony brought a sentence of up to five years, which he served as a year in the Davis County Jail after convincing the court he would not survive in prison.
By the time he entered jail for the second time, Lucero had nothing left. “I had lost everything. No friends. It was my rock bottom.” He chose to use the time to grow. He read 150 books, learned to play poker well enough to sharpen his math skills, and became a trusted figure in the jail’s work program. He cleaned fairgrounds, picked up trash along roads, and eventually worked the kitchen docks, where he built good relationships with guards.
Then came an unexpected opportunity. “One of the guys said, ‘You’re gay, you can cut hair.’ I responded, ‘I don’t think that’s how it works, but let’s try.” Using a plastic comb and a razor blade, he taught himself to fade hair. Eventually a guard brought in clippers, and cutting hair became his unofficial job.
After ten months, he was released with no clear plan. “I thought I’d get a quick job at Great Clips, then figure out how to get rid of my felonies and do something else.” Instead, he enrolled in hair school. Over the next several years, he worked in both salons and barbershops, observing different leadership styles. Many, he decided, were not the kind of places he would want to work long-term.
In January 2020, Lucero opened his own studio. Three months later, the COVID-19 shutdown forced him to close without pay. “I had to learn how to be scrappy and maneuver through that.” The experience reinforced his desire to create something larger, with better support for employees and clients alike.
Lucero Hair & Wellness opened in 2023. All staff are employees, not booth renters, and haircuts are priced by time and complexity rather than by gender. “I had long hair at one point and had to book a women’s haircut. I thought, why are women paying more when it takes the same time?”
His clientele includes many who have been turned away or denied the styles they wanted elsewhere. “A lot of clients tell us barbershops refused to cut their hair the way they wanted because they were perceived as female.” The salon’s team is intentionally diverse, and turnover has been low.
Lucero’s community work is as important to him as running the salon. He started the Gender Free Haircut Club, which offers free cuts, makeup, and styling for LGBTQ youth. “These kids come in deflated and leave strutting down a runway. I cry the entire time.” The salon also hosts free classes on shaving, makeup, and skincare, often for people who never had anyone to teach them.
His own childhood included periods of homelessness. When his mother’s housing fell through, the family spent nights under carports and near dumpsters. “I knew we couldn’t make it like that. Eventually I got us back to my grandma’s.” Those experiences shaped his belief in structured help. “We have to create opportunities for people to change the trajectory of their lives.”
Lucero also believes in expanding vocational training for inmates, noting that many programs exist only in prisons and are rarely advertised. “No one tells you if there are programs.” He says seeing role models who have been in the same position can be just as important as learning a trade. “When people see someone who’s been where they’re at, achieving things now, it changes their mindset.”
Today, Lucero Hair & Wellness is on track for more than a million dollars in annual revenue. Half of the original team still works there. The boy who once faced a room full of federal marshals now leads a business that not only thrives financially but provides a safe and welcoming place for people who often find themselves on the margins.
“If I can do it, anyone should be able to do it,” Lucero says. “But you have to accept responsibility for where you are, and then do the work to get somewhere better.”
