Asencion “Junior” Escajeda Built Studio 27 to Be a Place Where Everyone Belongs

When Asencion “Junior” Escajeda talks about Studio 27, he rarely starts with hair. He starts with how a person feels when they sit down in the chair. The salon he co-founded with his partner, Roger Woodard, in Hill Country Village in 2015 was never meant to be just a place to get a cut or a color. “A salon should be more than a place to get your hair done,” he says. “It should be a place where people feel seen, heard, and cared for.”

That belief is even built into the name. There’s a simple reason behind the “Studio 27” name: Junior was 27 when they opened the doors. It marked the moment when two young, ambitious people took a big chance on themselves. Looking back, Junior says the number came to mean much more than an age; it symbolizes the courage it took to bet on themselves and the belief that they could build a place where both clients and stylists could thrive. More than a decade in, the name has stopped being a label and has become a reflection of who they are.

A Family Story That Begins in Chihuahua

Junior’s sense of how to treat people was shaped long before he ever picked up a pair of shears. He grew up in El Paso, Texas, in a proud Latino family whose roots run to Chihuahua, Mexico. Like many immigrant families, they worked relentlessly to build opportunities for the next generation, and that resilience became his inheritance. 

“Those values shape who I am today,” he says, “and they continue to guide me as a business owner.”

In the beauty industry, that inheritance shows up as respect. Junior approaches every client with the same goal: to make them comfortable enough to be themselves.

“You are who you are, and I’m okay with that,” he says. He’s also candid about how steep the climb can be for Latinos in the industry. There’s help out there, he notes, but rarely enough of it to show someone the way. His advice is the same one his family modeled: keep educating yourself, keep working, and you will get where you want to go.

A Safe Space, Without Judgment

For Junior, building a welcoming salon was personal. As a member of the LGBTQ+ community in Texas, he knows how hard it can be to find a space that feels safe. So when he and his partner opened Studio 27, they were determined to make it a judgment-free space.

“You feel free to be open. Feel free to be you,” he says. Some clients come in to share their whole life story; others just want to sit quietly and de-stress. Both are welcome, no questions asked.

Being open about his own identity didn’t always feel easy. Early on, Junior worried about how clients would react. What he found instead were deeper connections.

“Being honest and being you, everybody loves that,” he says. “They don’t care what happens outside those doors.” Appreciative of his feature during Pride Month, he frames pride as authenticity and gratitude at once: living and loving openly, and honoring the people who opened doors before him.

The Real Transformation

Studio 27’s tagline promises to make clients feel like goddesses, but Junior is quick to point out that the hair is only part of it. “The real transformation is whenever somebody sees themselves in the mirror and sees confidence,” he says. The measure of a good day is a client who walks out with a bigger smile and feeling empowered.

After all these years, what still moves him is the trust. Clients come to him for weddings and promotions, for fresh starts and hard endings, including divorces and even funerals. “Make me look good, make me feel good,” they tell him, and he never takes that responsibility for granted. He also pushes back on the idea that a salon visit is superficial. “It’s not about just getting your hair done,” he says. “It’s about changing your confidence.”

That care is what keeps people coming back. In a city as deeply Latino as San Antonio and built, as Junior puts it, “on family, warmth, and community,” loyalty is everything, and it travels by word of mouth. 

“People remember us because of the way we make them feel,” he says. 

A Shared Dream

Studio 27 is the work of two people. Junior leads the operations side while Roger focuses on education and team development. The two met 16 years ago through a mutual friend, bonded over a shared passion for beauty, shared a set of values, and went on to build both a business and a beautiful family together, including Violet, the daughter they adopted.

Roger’s road there was its own kind of journey. He grew up in a South Georgia town of fewer than a thousand people, left home at 17, and found his calling almost by accident, enrolling in cosmetology school in Phoenix to pay the bills while he studied psychology. Three months in, he knew this was his dream career. Having learned firsthand how cutthroat and closed-off the industry could be, he made it his mission to do the opposite for his own stylists. 

At Studio 27, new talent is fast-tracked: confident and job-ready within three to six months, and sent to train at the Goldwell Academy in New York within a year of being hired. “I’m an underdog,” Roger says, and he keeps an eye out for others like him.

For all the structure Roger brings to the salon, Junior measures it by something less tangible. Asked what he’s most proud of, Junior doesn’t mention awards. He mentions the relationships. “It feels like family,” he says, “and that’s something no award or achievement can replace.” There are big plans on the horizon, too, but he would only say something is coming by the end of the year. 

Come what may, the vision for Studio 27 stays the same: to be a place where clients leave feeling beautiful and valued, and where a young stylist can build a career, not just a job. 

“It’s a reminder,” he says, “of what can happen when two people believe in a shared dream.”