Cha Hong

Early life

Cha is the fifth of six children in her family. She has four older sisters and one younger brother.

In her early days as a child, Cha did not initially have the passion to become a hairdresser. She recalls herself as having a dull and boring childhood largely due to her introverted personality, preferring to do things by herself, such as drawing pictures and playing with her paper dolls. Cha would spend most of her time with her other siblings or by herself, and rarely interacted with other people. During an interview with Arirang's The INNERview, Cha described herself as being "very sick" during her childhood, and only experienced her growth spurt in her high school days.

Cha's father died when she was studying in second grade, leaving behind an undesirable financial situation for her family to take on. Cha's family did not have much money then, thus she had to wear the clothes passed down from her siblings, and avoided spending unnecessarily as much as possible, borrowing school supplies from classmates whenever possible. Cha explains that this may have been the cause of her introverted personality in her youth.

Cha also mentioned during the interview with Arirang's The INNERview that the dire financial situation was caused by the bankruptcy of several unsuccessful business ventures her father had established prior to his death. Consequently, Cha's family had to cope with financial difficulties until she reached the age of 19, when she decided to quit college so as to ease the financial burden on her mother.

After Cha left college, she realized that she did not have a particular dream or passion to follow. While her siblings performed better in studies and managed to attain scholarships to study in universities, Cha did not perform as well in school then. Cha did have a knack for arts, particularly in drawing, but there was no art academy near to where her family stayed and if there was one, she would not have attended the academy anyway as it would cost money. At a lost, Cha contemplated suicide and wanted to drown herself in the sea of Busan, but retracted her decision soon after she traveled there, stating that "the sea appeared so beautiful" that it made her return home. It was then that her aunt recommended her to train and become a hairdresser, for fear that she would do something terrible with her life then. That unexpected suggestion soon marked a turning point in Cha's life as she quickly grew into one of the most renowned hairdressers in South Korea.

Cha did not have the luxury of a smooth-sailing journey towards becoming a hairdresser. She started out as a part-time worker cum trainee at her aunt's hair salon, and during that period of time, Cha had to overcome many challenges to achieve her current status. Notably, Cha once suffered from vocal nodules during her training, as she wanted to overcome her inability to speak loudly. Cha would spend hours practicing how to speak out loud on the rooftop, as her clients struggled to hear her low voice. Cha also developed atopy and suffered from atopic dermatitis during her training, mainly due to the poor quality of the air within the hair salon and the frequent exposure of cosmetic and hair products to her skin. Cha was then recommended by her customer service manager then to quit the job, but she was determined to continue, instead adjusting her dietary and sleeping habits to improve her skin condition. Despite the multiple obstacles, Cha grew to have a passion for the job, describing herself as being "amazed" every time she observed a client walk out of the hair salon after a complete makeover.

Career

Cha had started working at her aunt's hair salon as part of her training to become a hairdresser, but not long after, in 2002, she was scouted by Ra Beauty Core (라뷰티코아), a larger beauty salon situated in the Cheongdam-dong district of Gangnam, Seoul. In August 2011, Cha ventured out and started the first of her salons. By September 2012, Cha had established her second hair salon, back in Gangnam, Seoul.

During her time as a hairdresser, Cha realized the fact that her clients would only spend a few days every year to visit her hair salon so that Cha could style their hair for them. Cha wanted to provide a mean for her clients to style their hair themselves when they are unable to visit her for her services, and thus started teaching them self-hair styling tips through videos and other means. It was not long after that these videos became popular and got posted on to video-sharing websites. During that period, a production staff member of South Korean variety show SBS Star King was interested in filming an episode on self-hair styling, and thus invited Cha to participate in the filming. Cha initially had to teach a model several self-hair styling techniques on the show, but later the production staff recommended Cha to perform the demonstration on the show by herself instead. Following the airing of the episode, Cha's name became the most searched keyword on the search engines for two consecutive days.

Apart from her official line of work, Cha has also on several occasions visited local universities as a professor to give hairdressing classes. In 2011, Cha visited Seokyeong University, and made a similar trip to the Seoul Arts College in 2012.

In 2013, Cha was invited to be one of the pageant judges for the year's Miss Korea.

Volunteer work

Cha is an advocate of voluntary work, encouraging the employees of her businesses to participate as well. Cha's voluntary work mainly focuses on children with disabilities, offering hairdressing services to these children without charge. Cha is also involved with the protection of the environment, mainly due to her history of skin problems. Additionally, Cha frequently encourages celebrities, clients and employees to donate items for charity sales, thereafter donating the proceeds and unsold items to charity.

Personal life

Cha has been married since 2008, having first met her husband in 2006 as colleagues at the same workplace. Her husband is Han Pil-su (Hangul: 한필수), a director of the Chahong Ardor beauty salon chain as well as the Chahong Ardor Academy, both entities jointly managed by the pair. Before Han met Cha back in South Korea, he lived in England, where he studied and worked as a hair designer. Han was employed as a hairstylist at one of Aveda's salons in London, before moving to Weybridge where he served as a director under the Toni&Guy group. In a television broadcast, Cha admitted having initially made the first move to pursue her husband after growing a love interest in him. Her husband made his first public appearance alongside Cha in 2013, when the pair featured as guests on one of MBC's programs, 사람이다Q.

In October 2015, Cha announced that she was 5 months into pregnancy and would minimize her public appearances until the child was due.