After traveling to Honduras and Cuba on mission trips, Steamboat Springs hairstylist Liana Torres is setting her sights on changing the world one haircut at a time.

“It’s not about the money, it’s not about the recognition,” Torres said of sharing her passion for hairdressing, massage, and nails with struggling communities in Cuba, Honduras and Roatán. “It’s the feeling that you get when you know that you are helping somebody get on their feet and helping somebody be proud again by giving a skill that not everybody has.”

Torres, who owns Inspired Hair Design by Liana, is in the process of creating a new nonprofit foundation called Business in a Bag. The effort is a combination of teaching basic hairdressing skills and providing donated supplies to help people living in economically developing countries start their own beauty salons in places like Cuba, Honduras and Roatán — the most developed island in the Bay Islands.

The idea for Business in a Bag grew out of Torres’ desire to help people and was inspired by a mission trip to Honduras with the Steamboat Christian Center in 2023. On that trip she helped with construction aimed at improving living conditions in economically challenged communities with building projects.

“It didn’t have anything to do with hair — it was a lot of projects focused on improving the lives of people who live there,” Torres said of her first trips.

On that trip, Torres quickly realized that she was better with a pair of scissors and clippers than she was with a hammer. She also felt that sharing her talents could have a bigger impact by providing the people she met in these communities with skills that could support their families.

When she got back, she volunteered for another mission trip to Cuba led by the ministry group Nueva Vida that took place in February of 2024.

Her friend Marco Cuevas, who was spearheading the effort, suggested that Torres and stylist Stephanie Rodriquez, who is with the Brio Salon and Spa in Steamboat, bring along clippers and scissors and help in a different way.

The two led classes in Cuba where locals came to learn the basics of the beauty industry. The two women brought everything they needed to teach the classes along with bags filled with clippers, scissors, capes, combs, smocks, brushes and other supplies needed to open a salon.

The hope is that the students would be able to learn the basic skills necessary to run their own business or to work in a salon in the popular tourist-driven communities that can be found in these communities. Torres had realized there is a need for stylists, nail technicians and massage therapists in these communities, but there was little or no training for the people who could fill those positions.

Torres said when she got back from the trip, she decided to make another mission trip to Honduras in August and began actively seeking donations from beauty suppliers like State Beauty Supply.

“The hairstyling community in this town has really rallied around me,” Torres said. “Whenever I say I’m going, my fellow hairstylists will reach out and say we want a part of this.”

She has given away 15 startup kits as part of Business in a Bag, with each kit including hundreds of dollars worth of beauty supplies. She has also expanded classes and has reached dozens of men and women in these communities.