Mason Lund is a model and hairstylist. *Photo by Paul Hjellming*

By Tom Victoria

Mason Lund helps others feel better about themselves. The stunning model is also a hairstylist.

The cosmetology student styles under the Hair by Mason name. Mason, 19, of Minnesota, cited the most important aspect of styling being the positive impact on others.

"I love all the things you can do with hair and makeup, but what I love most about it is how much it brings out someone's confidence on the outside, and that's what really brings up their inner confidence as well," he said. "That's my biggest thing for sure. I believe people that feel more positive about themselves and life is the best way to help them. I see a lot of negative people through my days at school and work. The energy they give off is completely different from the positive people. Even if both sides are going through similar things, the positive people always seem better and more full of life."

Mason said styling helps people look and feel better.

"It definitely depends on your face style," he said. "Even with hair, there's a hairstyle that suits everybody and makeup that suits everybody. You just gotta find that out. I have my own inspo boards if someone else doesn't have inspiration. So I definitely would scroll through that. I have different boards for different face shapes. Go through one of those, see what they like the most, what catches their eye, and talk about what each hairstyle looks like and the maintenance on it and everything, depending if they want high maintenance or low maintenance. Some people just want to get out of the shower and go."

Mason will work for an existing salon after graduating from cosmetology school but has aspirations to have his own someday.

"I really do want my own salon one day," he said. "But for now, I want to graduate and then go work in a salon to get more experience and training and go from there."

Mason plans to migrate south upon graduation.

"Definitely Florida," he said. "I want to go down south."

In the interim, Mason is learning all aspects of cosmetology.

"It's mainly hair, men's hair, women's hair, color cutting, everything," he said. "And then we learn the basics of makeup, basics of waxing armpits and eyebrows. We learn lash extensions, some facial stuff and nails, but it's mostly hair."

Mason said some things people did in the past, such as women using fake nails glued on their real ones, is discouraged.

"That is not good," he said. "We would not recommend that at all. There's specific glues for nails that comes off easily. It's healthy for your nail and won't rip it off and damage it."

Mason explained wigs have never gone out of fashion with some folks having shorter locks.

"That is very common," he said. "A lot of people get wigs installed even if they have long hair or short hair, but usually short-haired people get wigs installed just because then they have the ability to change their look. With wigs, there's certain glues and processes that help it go on. You connect it to your forehead and use all these type of glues. But then there's also extensions, and those you can sew into your hair so those blend easier. Those are better for people that already have full and long hair to make it longer and more full. But wigs are more for people that don't have much hair, like short, thin hair. I know a lot of people that have curly hair that get wigs so they can have straight hair. That's very common."

Mason said people need to be careful about dyeing their hair.

"Sometimes we do a test strand," he said. "If their hair does not cooperate with the test strand or it looks like it won't take color or bleach, then it's just unsafe cause their hair could fall out. Same with nails. If people's nails are really messed up, then it's not safe to put anything on top of them cause they need to grow back and not get damaged."

Mason said makeup helps accentuate people's best features.

"Makeup can amplify your look so, so much," he said. "It doesn't have to change how you look like, it just amplifies your look. I was also a scare actor at a haunted house, so we did makeup to look like clowns and everything. It's a spray makeup, a spray gun type thing."

Mason looks for a few features to determine the best makeup for a person.

"Their undertone and shade of skin, face shape for sure and just go from there," he said. "Once you have their face shape and the structure of their face, it's golden after that."

Mason became interested in the cosmetology field as a teen.

"I grew interest in this field probably when I was 16," he said. "That's when I started exploring it on myself and everything, and then I thought it'd be great to do it on other people. But after I graduated high school, I did go into real estate and got my real estate license knowing I didn't want to do that. So I did get that, but then I decided to go to hair school after that because that's what I've always wanted to do. But I did get my real estate license on the year I had off."

Mason opted to delve further into real estate.

"It is a very, very good industry to get into," he said. "I will say that the housing market is not great right now. Nobody wants to buy a house right now, so the market's bad. So that's when I was like, hey, this is not going to get me anywhere right now. In the future it could, but I was like, I need something else for right now. I realized I need to go to hair school because that's what I've always wanted to do."

Mason never lets negative opinions deter him from pursuing his goals.

"I've always been that way, too, where I just don't really care what other people say or opinions," he said. "I always just follow what I want to do and where I want to go."

Mason started posing for the lens in 2025.

"I got into the modeling world about a year ago," he said. "I joined an agency. I didn't do a lot with it right away. I just got my portfolio shoots and everything. And then my first actual thing I did with modeling, I went on a Florida trip and we did an American Eagle practice shoot type thing. It was more of just for the experience. Then we also got a bunch of photos done there. I really loved it. And then I started doing more shoots on my own. I haven't done anything huge. I just been doing free shoots with people I know. Now that I'm in school though, I don't have time to do modeling anymore, so I left my agency. But I do plan to try and make it a lot bigger after I'm done with school for sure. I love being behind the camera and everything. I love that it shows my confidence to be behind a camera because I have built a lot of confidence in myself over the past couple of years. So it helps me express that."

Mason said modeling requires patience.

"I've had shoots that took four hours, and an hour of it was actually shooting photos," he said.

Mason said modeling produces connections.

"It definitely gets you to talk more and get to know people because then you really get to know your photographers when you're sitting there for so long," he said.

Mason prefers studio shoots to exterior ones.

"Just because you can play with the lighting how you please," he said.

Mason would take a modeling career as far as it could go even with the pitfalls of becoming a celebrity.

"I feel like it does get to a point when people are coming at you," he said. "Sometimes people really get harassed in public, but I would love people come up in public and know who I am. One hundred percent."

Mason is a talented athlete having competed in cheer.

"Cheer was such a fun and challenging sport," he said. "It definitely helped me mature as a person and become more confident. It put me out of my comfort zone and find the most amazing teammates and friends. I loved cheer competition weekends and the feeling you get when competing on stage. I started cheer because I was a gymnast for seven years at the time and I hated most events in gymnastics except for the tumbling aspect. I wanted to quit but then I saw TikToks on my For You Page about cheer and my neighbor asked me why don’t I start this sport. I started looking into it and decided to try out and it was the best decision I could’ve made."

Mason stays incredibly fit.

"I like to focus on fitness a lot," he said. "Since starting school, I’ve been trying to fix my schedule and be more consistent but I love to go to the gym, be active and try to eat a better diet even though sometimes that’s not the case."

Mason stressed the importance of people not being afraid to be open about who they are.

"People should express themselves and what makes them most confident because people will always find a way to hate on you so you might as well be confident in yourself and express yourself," he said.

Mason wants to help young people in the LGBTQ+ community.

"I really want to be a role model for younger kids that are going through what I went through with finding myself and my sexuality," he said. "Because I see my old self in them and I just want to be someone people can look up to and help with what they are dealing with. Another thing I want to start is a podcast to give advice to people. My target audience on social media I realized has a big chunk of young LGBTQ men and I wanna be the person I looked up to back when I was that age and give my honest advice because I know how hard that can be."

Mason keeps his goals in mind.

"Usually if I have to do something, it's something that's gonna better my future," he said. "So I always stay motivated, knowing that it's gonna better me in the future and just go for it."

Mason adopted a plan for times when motivation isn't strong.

"I saw this girl on TikTok and she said that she thinks about the day in parts," he said. "She doesn't worry about what the week's gonna look like or the full day or even the month. She's waiting to get to midday, lunchtime. And then when she hits that, she's like, okay, now I have to make dinner. Only the little sections because once you overwhelm yourself, you don't want to keep going with what you're doing and your goals in life. If you think about too much years in advance, you are gonna crash and not keep going. Life's gonna go on whether you fuck up that day or not. Life's still gonna go on. So you just gotta just go with the flow, stop caring so much. That's my big thing. I'm always an 'I don't care' type of person when it comes to little things. Life is gonna go on no matter what."

Mason also doesn't fret about what people may think about his appearance.

"People are always going to be petty and judge," he said. "So with fashion and everything and how I look, I can go out bare-faced in a hoodie and sweats and still get shit. So I might as well express myself. That's my biggest thing, too. Life's gonna go on whether people talk shit or not, or you fuck up or not."

Mason offered advice to aspiring models.

"Don't get discouraged about how you look," he said. "I used to hate how I looked for the longest time, and then I grew confidence in myself. That's also why I joined the beauty industry. You need to be confident in yourself and not let that world change you, because that world could definitely change you and make you hate yourself more than you already do. So don't get discouraged. Everyone is beautiful in their own way. But that's also one of the reasons I joined the beauty industry because I know what it's like to look in the mirror, not like what you see at all. So when someone comes in my chair and doesn't like what they see, I want them to leave loving what they see when they look in the mirror. And then that grows their inner confidence as well. It's a full circle."

Mason cautioned future hair stylists about what lies ahead.

"It is a lot of work," he said. "The schooling is a lot, but just think about the future. You really need to be open to everything and be understanding and understand yourself and like other people, because it's definitely a people business. You're working with people all the time, so you need to understand people. You need to be able to talk to people because they're going to sit in your chair and rant about their life. So you got to be there for people as well. And it can take a toll on you, too. My instructor has had people with cancer come in to get their heads shaved, so that took a giant toll on her. People talk about all their life and the hard things they're going through. And that haircut or that hair color is gonna be the one thing that's making them happy. So you just gotta be prepared for that and just know that you're making a difference in someone's life every day."

Mason's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/masonn.lund/

Mason's hair Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_hairbymason

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