So I work for a salon that's in Carytown. Carytown is a really trendy part of Richmond. Lots of artists, swanky little cafes and coffee shops, a lesbian bar, tons of salons, vintage clothing stores and costume shops, I swear I see something new everyday here. It's all a one way street, so people just parallel park (which I have gotten really good at!), and get out and walk around town. The weekends are jam packed, but that's great for walk ins, since we're right in the middle of all the action. My salon is also a full service spa, we have an entire side of the salon for nails, and two massage rooms as well. We do spa parties, and serve the clients champagne and chocolate covered strawberries (that the owner makes herself at home). The hair side doesnt really have too much to do with that, unless they want their hair done too, but it's more for bachelorette parties to all get pedicures and hang out in a spa together. A few weeks ago, we had a bachelorette party of probably 10 women,in here on a Saturday (which is already our busiest day) and they went through 14 bottles of wine. A couple of them wanted to get their eyebrows waxed, which I did, and one of the girls was so drunk that she fell asleep while I was waxing her eyebrows haha. Never a dull moment!
But more about my side. We have 5 hair stations on the hair side, and 5 hairstylists. It can get cramped when we are all working at the same time, but it's rare for us all to be here, or at least have clients at the same time. My schedule is Wednesday through Sunday, so my Mondays and Tuesdays are my days off. For now, I really like this schedule. It actually seems to make the week go by faster, because even though I'm still working on the weekends, it still feels like a weekend because I'm doing social things with friends at night, and then I have two quiet days off to myself to get my housework and other things done.
There have only been maybe a total of 3 or 4 days since I started working that I havent had at least one client, and it's usually more. Because of our excellent location, we get a lot of walkins, and most of them get put on my book. We also get a lot of people calling us from searching the top salons in the area, and many people have said that we are the highest rated salon. Last weekend, we even had two girls drive up here from Virginia Beach because they had done a search on 'spafinder.com' and we had such high ratings, so they decided to make a day trip up to us. I also made some flyers with discounts, that I'm giving to all of my new clients to hand out to their friends. Mostly all of my clients have been really excited about their hair, and have been excited to hand out my flyers to their friends and family. I've had really good luck with it, and have seen a good turn out already for people coming in from other clients of mine referring them. I've already had a few clients return to me too.
One of my favorite clients was a woman who had cancer, and she had been letting her hair grow out completely naturally ever since losing her hair to the cancer treatments. Her hair was halfway down her back, and I was the first person to cut it since she had had any hair to cut! She loved it, and has already been back to see me once to go even shorter. I had another lady come in a few times to me, and she is 61, but looks like she's around 50. Women of this age group are usually my favorite women to work with. They've been around the block, have a million life stories to tell me about, and they're coming to me for advice on how to look younger, hotter, sexier (their words usually, not mine!). But this one 61 year old, she is hilarious. She's a professor at a local college, and has been handing out my flyers to all of her students. She also didn't skip a beat in telling me a story of how a couple weeks ago she tried to ride a bicycle for the first time in many years, and she started laughing so hard at herself for not being able to catch her balance, that she peed her pants about two blocks away from her house. She was telling me this as I was doing her hair, with other clients and stylists all around us, and she wasnt even embarrassed. I love clients like this! I literally had to put my shears down so that I could catch my breath from laughing so hard. The whole salon was rolling!
I'm already more busy here than I ever was in Virginia Beach, whether I was in the salon, or working on my own during the past year. I'm still getting paid hourly, but if this keeps up, I'll be able to switch over to commission without any reservations, very soon.
Our salon has been selected to do hair and makeup for Richmond fashion week in April. With our great reviews, they actually came to us and asked us if we'd be interested in working with them. So that's gonna be really great exposure for us, and I love doing big events like this. I've done hair for a few bridal shows in Chesapeake, and it was such a blast. Being backstage and styling the hair on models. It can be hectic, but such a rush!
And I'm starting to really like all of my coworkers. I'll write more about them later. But I am really starting to feel like I fit in here. :)
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