Mercedes Garcia

Mercedes was born in Mexico, one of eight siblings, and moved to Santa Monica at twelve years old to live with an aunt while she finished her American education. After graduating, she completed beauty school and spent her first seven years cutting hair at the same Ocean Park location before eventually buying the salon from its previous owner.

Since then, she's built The Hairbrains into a full salon offering hair, nail, and skin care, staying true to the same one-on-one approach: no scheduling software, just a phone call and her full attention once you're in the chair. Clients consistently mention her patience, taking her time with every haircut, color, and wax rather than rushing through appointments.

Painting has been Mercedes's lifelong passion alongside hairstyling. Her art became especially meaningful after a car accident left her daughter paraplegic. Mercedes turned to painting as therapy for them both. "I wanted to remind her that life keeps going on, and to inspire her to keep creating," she has said.

She now has over a hundred original oil, acrylic, and watercolor canvases, some of which hang in the salon itself and in area restaurants and private homes.