Meet Nate Lastinger

Today we’d like to introduce you to Nate Lastinger.

Hi Nate, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
Simply put, I started out in the car business for years, until an ex-girlfriend suggested I get into barbering (after seeing the free time and money she made as a stylist of nine years.) So within a day, I quit my job and went to the Paul Mitchell School of Tampa to start my journey. Once out of school, I was able to become a master barber and landed at an extremely modern barbershop that was opening up in the downtown area of Saint Petersburg (Machine Shop Barber Company), having people from all over the country in my chair (race car drivers, people in the music industry, even down to other salon owners.

That situation brought me to being an ambassador for a beard oil company called Fellowship Brand, which focuses on the quality your facial hair gets, mixed with being apart of a true brand that everyone can connect with. Along with things like that going on, I’ve been asked to join podcasts as an interviewee and talk about my past with attempting to canoe the entire Mississippi in record-breaking time, to simply my background from childhood. I’ve had the pleasure to be guest artist at the Paul Mitchell school, along with a few others, so to show new students how the reality of hair is in the salon/barbershop.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Of there is always struggles in the road from up and leaving your job to go to school full time for close to a year and not having bills paid, or even when you get out of school during a pandemic and have to find a spot willing to give you a chance with no true shop experience and clientele. There are also small struggles here and there, but everything can be easy to pass through if you know how to attack it.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
So at this point in life, if it hasn’t been figured out; I am all into men’s hair, men’s grooming in general. If I look back at my past when it comes from a creative outlook, I remember growing up liking art. Painting/drawing, sculpting, anything that I could create in a sense. I remember as a teen, I would cut my friend’s hair. Not even for the realization that I liked cutting hair, but just simply to do it. While it always turned out extremely bad at times, it really made me realize I loved working with my hands. Which got me to working in tattoo shops for a brief time and learning that industry.

However, it all ended up back to hair. Color, cuts, shaves etc. I love dealing with really sharp looking gentleman cuts with a beard I can sculpt. I try and set myself apart through things as simple as how I freehand beard sculpting or even hair. Using different methods around the world that a lot of people (guys specifically) have never even heard of when creating texture in their hair. It’s all about giving an experience to the client on new and innovative ways to make the cut fun and grabbing the attention to clients. While I’m no Divinci (yet), it’s only a matter of time before I can achieve becoming more of a platform artist and teaching throughout the hair industry.

Not only am I trying to work myself into the platform artist arena, I have also been pretty busy with designing and creating a new comb for people in the industry. While I can’t talk much on it currently because of the fact it is still under wraps for the next few months, I will say it will be focused on a comb for students that are going through hair school, or just better expand the dexterity to the way stylists and barbers cut hair”

Is there anything else you’d like to share with our readers?
If there is one thing I can say that can completely change where you end up in life, it’s the people you surround yourself with. The shop I am in is like no other. The owner has the connections that would have taken a long time for me to get in front of. While that isn’t what happens for everyone, it can be the mindset that is taken away on this. Find good people who have the same goal in mind to get you where you want to go. Help each other out. I find myself staying and working late with the owner on operational stuff with the shop. Make yourself available to continue growing and getting you where you want to go.

Contact Info:

• Email: Natestyles727@gmail.com
• Website: Machineshopbarber.com
• Instagram: Natestyles727
• Facebook: www.Facebook.com/natestyles727

Image Credits:
Instagram @evanderlipps for a few photos and @stone.uniquelikeyou for a few others