About Karen Marie Shelton

About Karen Marie Shelton

Karen Marie Shelton founded the popular HairBoutique.com website back in August of 1997 as a result of an ironic twist of hair karma.

Founder of a successful software company in 1995 (T&S Software) that manufactures Voice Over IP software solutions Karen attended the U of Missouri where she received a degree in the social sciences. A Masters degree in Public Policy & Business followed with post grad work in business at St. Louis University and Washington U.

Karen was named Entrepreneur of the Year by Working Woman Magazine in 2001 and featured in Working Woman Magazine for the founding of her two companies. She has been profiled and quoted in many different magazines and newspapers for her consumer hair expertise including The Dallas Morning News, D Magazine, Page Six, Twist, Star Magazine, Accessories, Shop, Etc., and Life & Style Weekly – to name just a few.

Karen jokingly blames her transformation from a career in computers & engineering to hair on her Aunt Margie who was a hairdresser back in St. Louis where she grew up.

As a result of her unexpected founding of the HairBoutique.com site Karen gorged on hair styling & hair care books, videos, CDs and DVDs nonstop. To this day she still takes hair classes & studies hair styling books on a regular basis. She also has taken classes in long hair care and styling.

Her goal is to help empower consumers with hair care and styling information that they might not normally be able to find anywhere else.

A professional writer since 1981 when she first wrote a monthly astrology column for a teen magazine, Karen has written for many publications over the years. For the past six years Karen has written a monthly hair advice column for 101 Celebrity Hairstyles (Hair Doctor) as well as a monthly hair advice column for Short Cuts. She also contributes a regular AskKaren column to Total Beauty Image magazine as well as to special consumer hair publications produced by Multi Media International.

In late 2006 Karen started contributing consumer related hair and beauty content to Harris Publications. Her work is also featured on several major hair and beauty related websites including SheKnows.com.

Her many articles on hair care, styling and hair accessories (another one of her passions) have been reprinted on many sites across the Web. She most recently consulted on a celebrity hair project for the Canadian Broadcasting Company.

HairBoutique.com currently contains over 3,500+ of her original articles and columns about hair, beauty, fashion and celebrities. Her AskKaren hair advice column has been accessed by millions.

Karen freely admits to her obsession with “all things hair” and wears her own hair several inches below her waist. When she is not writing about hair or celebrities she is traveling around the globe buying the latest hair, beauty and related accessories for the HairBoutique.com online store – The Marketplace – which currently has over 15,000 unique hair and beauty items which includes over 1,000 different styles of headbands.

Karen loves to hear the latest scoops on celebrity hair from celeb hairdressers, make-up artists and stylists. If you would like to share your hair scoops with her she would love to hear from you. Email her at shelton@hairboutique.com.