In honor of Earth Day and celebrating this beautiful place we call home, here are a few salons that are doing their part to keep their spaces eco-friendly (and eco-chic).
Boss Hair Group
Award-winning colorist John Blue opened Boss Hair Group in November 2018 as a salon for the eco-friendly consumer. Here, excess hair color waste is put through a centrifuge and turned into clean energy and clean neutralized water, and hair clippings collected are used for a variety of initiatives, ranging from oil spill cleanup and storm water filtration to the creation of biocomposite fibers. Plus, they use Ecohead showerheads at washing stations to conserve water—saving them up to 65 gallons of water per hour on a busy day.
A New Beginning Salon and Spa
Carol St. Amand Romer, owner of this Connecticut-based salon and spa, decided to use low-VOC paint on the walls and chose cork floors, a “green” alternative to traditional flooring. What's more, their carpet is made from recycled soda bottles. For the record, 40 two-liter bottles are recycled per square yard of carpeting.
Novak Hair Studios
When opening Novak Hair Studios, co-founders Benjamin Novak Hudgins and Justin Hudgins saw it as a responsibility as business owners to provide easy ways for clients to be green.“What if people knew that the North American salon industry is contributing 421,206 pounds of waste into the landfills a day?” Benjamin says. The first step was partnering with Green Circle Salons. The salon installed water-saving devices, including Ecoheads at shampoo bowls, and implemented a clean air initiative, decorating the salon with plants that turn harmful fumes into clean oxygen and creating 100 percent fresh air intake through a state-of-the-art VRF system that regulates energy efficiently.
Pony Salon
In addition to partnering with Green Circle Salons, Corinna Hernandez’s Oakland, CA hotspot Pony Salon also invests heavily in environmentally friendly organizations and partners with Carbonfund.org, which reduces the salon’s environmental impact by donating to a reforestation and anti-deforestation fund.
A.Salon
Chicago’s a.salon was opened by color specialist Amy Moser and her husband Rudy with the mission of making “beauty simplified.” Step one was joining Green Circle Salons, so that 95.5 percent of its byproducts are recycled, including hair, foils, balayage plastic, color tubes and developer bottles. The salon also invested in fixtures, equipment and products, and installed low-voltage LED lighting and tankless water heaters.