Her homecoming was quite a whirlwind. She officially announced her return via social media on Sunday and went to work that Tuesday.

And she’s been busy ever since.

Peyton Bryan, a Vicksburg native and owner of downtown’s Brittany Peyton Bryan Hair Studio, said leaving her former client base in Houston, Texas, was difficult, but so far, returning to her roots has proved worthwhile.

“I built up my business there and felt like I was literally closing up the doors of my business (when I left),” Bryan said. “I met these people, and you become friends with them. You care about them and their families. So coming back here, knowing it’s a smaller town and there’s a hairdresser on every corner, it was kind of like, ‘OK, let’s just see how this goes.’ But it’s been great. It’s such a blessing.”

Bryan opened her women’s hair studio on May 2. She specializes in cuts, coloring and balayage, a hair highlighting technique, and estimates to have had more than 200 individual appointments since then, making her Tuesdays through Fridays — when her shop is open — a bustling few days.

“I think a lot of people are just starting to catch on,” she said. “I was busy the first month or so but it has really taken off. I would say half of my clients were going to Jackson.”

Her hair studio at 710 Crawford St. is a one-woman show where she works personally with each customer, something she said she thinks people enjoy.

“I wanted it to be just big enough for me so I could be one-on-one with clients,” she said.

Bryan’s journey back to Vicksburg began after her husband, Adam, decided to take a job here, she said.

Then, she said, there were decisions to make: Where should she locate her hair studio? Should she take on a renovation? Would this work?

“I didn’t want to drive to Jackson because I didn’t want us (her and her husband) to build a life separately,” she said.

“He works here. I didn’t want to be to be going to lunch and dinner there and he’s here and then us try to meet in the middle. In Houston, we both had to commute opposite ways and then meet in the middle, so I didn’t want to do that again.”

With the decision to work in Vicksburg checked off the to-do list, finding a place for a studio was next, something she said she relied on her husband and other family members in town to help her with.

“When we decided we wanted this, we had only looked through the windows,” she said of her now renovated studio downtown. “We hadn’t even been in it. We rented it without me seeing it.”

Renovations on the studio took from January of this year until April, she said, during which she traveled between Houston and Vicksburg until their house sold in Texas — all while her husband and friends also worked on adding and removing walls, rebuilding window casings, refinishing the ceiling and laying new floors in the studio.

“My husband gets all the credit for the renovation. Along with friends, he did most of the work, except for the ceiling. I pulled 200 nails out of the ceiling,” she said of restoring the dark wooden ceiling the studio now sports.

“All of the nails that are still in there are just part of the wood. They were not coming out. They are now part of the ceiling,” she said, laughing.

During the renovation, Bryan said she found a lady’s leather glove and a pair of men’s heels underneath the floor and a tag for Up To Date Shoe Store. She learned the building used to be a shoe store in the 1920s and 1930s but has been mostly used for storage since.

“It hasn’t been a business since the 50s,” she said.

When she finally made it to Vicksburg fulltime, she spent the remaining month working on the finishing touches, some of which are still on the to-do list—like putting up an official sign.

All in though, Bryan said she has enjoyed her return home.

“I love what I do,” she said. “It’s like having your hobby and your career be the same thing. I do lots of training, lots of continuing education just so I can better everything I know and better what I already know.

“We decided when we came back here we were just going to put all our eggs in one basket; we were just really going to give it our all to build a life here.”

To make an appointment, message Bryan on her Facebook page at Brittany Peyton Hair Artist or call 601-831-4882.