This Hairdresser Went Viral Asking Clients for Consent Before Touching Them — and Now It's Had a Big Impact on Their Salon (Exclusive)

• Jordan Palmer is the co-owner of JPalm Hairdressing Salon in Omaha, Neb., which they run with their wife Alex Bauer.

• The hairdresser has gone viral for asking clients for consent before touching them.

• Palmer tells PEOPLE the viral videos have had a big impact on their salon.

It may seem like a no-brainer that a haircut requires the hairdresser to touch you, but for Jordan Palmer, asking for consent is a key part of their consultation process.

Palmer is a co-owner of JPalm Hairdressing Salon in Omaha, Neb., alongside their wife, Alex Bauer, who runs the salon’s social media. The JPalm TikTok page has more than 450,000 followers and 13.7 million likes, with many of Palmer’s consultation videos going viral.

At the start of each consultation, Palmer asks each client for their pronouns and then asks explicitly for consent before touching them. The simple question has drawn plenty of attention online — both good and bad — and it’s a formula Palmer and Bauer say works for their business.

“I have been asking for consent probably since I went off on my own about five years ago,” Palmer shares with PEOPLE. “I integrated that into how I interact with my clients because the community that we are servicing and our target [client] appreciates the consent question.”

Palmer and Bauer have been posting videos of their consultations and hair transformations for about a decade now, but Bauer noticed the videos where Palmer asked for pronouns and consent brought significantly more engagement to the page. Noticing the content started “conversation” among viewers, Bauer encouraged Palmer to keep these two pieces in every consultation.

“Pronouns are so important, at least for our business model and the community that we're servicing — which is like creating a safe space for queer people in the beauty industry,” Palmer says. “I think that Alex recognized that there are a lot of people who are just desperate to see that.”

Their request for consent from the client also isn’t a rhetorical question — they admit they’ve been declined permission to touch a client while completing an appointment. But even if it may set the appointment back a bit, Palmer respects the client’s autonomy.

“If somebody says no, I don't touch them and I wait,” Palmer states simply, noting how they once had a client who was “mostly nonverbal” who exercised their right to revoke consent during an appointment.

“That client had a hard time in your typical beauty salon where there was a lot of touching because they had a lot of sensory things going on with them,” Palmer recounts. “That was probably the very first person that I ever asked for consent.”

Palmer says this client needed frequent breaks “to help regulate them having the experience of the haircut,” but it ultimately made the hairdresser more comfortable building that trusting relationship with their clients.

“The thing is, if I'm gonna ask for consent, I have to be ready for somebody to say no,” Palmer says. “I have been in the situation where somebody has said no — then that's just sitting and waiting until they're comfortable. And usually, that doesn't take very long because once you show that you respect the consent question, it shows that you're taking it seriously.”

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“Those small moments of autonomy are so important as young people,” Bauer says, noting that many of Palmer’s clients are teenagers. “It also ultimately builds so much more trust with a hairstylist, because like how many times have you have you gone to the salon and you don't know your hairdresser, you don't really understand what's happening and then you walk out with a haircut that you hate?”

“I just noticed that that really disarmed people if I asked before I put my hands on them,” Palmer says. “It was definitely something that I recognized, especially with young people, that built trust with me kind of immediately.”

The exposure hasn’t come without its downsides, though. Trolls on TikTok have made skits and videos mocking Palmer’s consent question, but as Bauer points out, “on the internet, all attention can be good attention, to a degree.”

“I think it started out as like, ‘Oh, this is a way that we can get attention on the internet.’ … We just want to create content that makes people feel welcome and offers them a comforting space,” Bauer says. “I cannot tell you the number of comments or the number of people who come to our lives or send us a DM and they're like, ‘You're my comfort page.’“

The attention to the JPalm social media pages has also “directly influenced” Palmer’s books, they say, with Bauer noting that the clientele of the salon has “definitely gotten queerer.” But as the only stylist at JPalm Hairdressing Salon, their appointments are often booked out for months in advance.

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“That reaffirmed for us that asking for pronouns and consent and showing that to the world was really reaching our target audience and getting clients into the salon,” Palmer says.

Amid all of the ire their conversation-starting videos have drawn on the internet, the pair have become protective of the audience they’ve cultivated. Bauer notes that she has no tolerance for trolls insulting clients on the JPalm pages or spreading outright hate in the comments.

“I think it's grown past just building a following and now really understanding what having a following means,” Bauer says. “We have to [take care of] not only our clients that are in Jordan's chair and in our community in Omaha but also the people who support and watch and follow us on the internet. We also have a responsibility to them as well, and I think we both take that really, really seriously.”

Even though plenty of Palmer’s viewers won’t ever get a chance to sit in their salon chair, Bauer says she received comments and DMs from online users noting how the consultation videos have given them the language to ask for exactly what they need from their local hairdresser.

“Even me as a hairdresser inside a traditional salon has never completely felt comfortable,” Palmer admits. “There's just a lot that happens to you in that environment that is geared towards a certain audience in the beauty industry.”

“Getting your hair done in a place that reflects you and affirms your identity as a human being can be such a magical experience,” Palmer continues.

In between the consent-forward hair appointments and gender-affirming transformations, Palmer and Bauer are leaning into the “responsibility” of their following, hoping to change how consumers interact with the businesses they support.

“We can find businesses that reflect us and our values, and for our salon and what we believe is we want it to be accessible — meaning people are comfortable being touched before they're touched. Pronouns are always shared. Queer people, disabled folks, all walks of life feel comfortable in our salon,” Palmer says. “That approach towards affirming the type of client that you want in your chair has been really successful for me and my business and also the success that we found online.”

“People have said no [to being touched], people have taken [consent] back during an appointment, and the best thing to do is just to let them know that you're taking it seriously and to stop. 'cause it's as simple as that,” Palmer says. “No means no. If you don't wanna be touched in my salon, you do not have to be touched.”

Read the original article on People