How To Design A Salon That Works When Busy

A Pinterest-perfect salon can still be a nightmare to work in, and I learned that lesson the expensive way. While I’m in the middle of planning Panache & Company and waiting on a lease decision, I’m sharing the real salon design thinking I wish I’d had from day one. This is about hair salon layout, workflow, and the client experience, not just picking chairs and mirrors. 

I break down the difference between designing for function and decorating for looks, then I walk through the client journey step by step: what guests see when they enter, where they check in, where coats and bags go, how the waiting area feels, and how easy it is to find the restroom without having to ask. I also explain why I moved the reception desk off center in a past salon, put retail on the front wall, and watched retail sales climb because the flow finally made sense. 

Then we switch to thinking like a stylist. We talk color bar placement, towel storage and dirty towel drop zones, tool storage at stations, and why electrical outlets and dedicated circuits per station matter when every dryer and iron is running. I share what I love about ceiling-mounted blow dryer systems, what lighting choices help you see true hair color, and how to balance square footage so you can grow without turning the space into chaos. If education is part of your culture, I explain how to design the salon around training on the floor, not hide it in the back room. 

If you’re planning a salon build-out or remodel, take this with you: walk through an imaginary busy Saturday before you buy a single furnishing. Subscribe, share this with a salon owner friend, and leave a review telling me what part of your layout you’re rethinking first.

Ceiling-hanging blow-dryers: https://freestylesystems.com/

www.goodhairenergy.com

________________________________

Make sure to subscribe to our YouTube Channel as well!

Visit my Amazon Store for all my favorite products!

Instagram:  danisekeilitz

Shop my favorite Eufora Products.

Transcript

Dream Salon Reality Check

SPEAKER_00 0:00

When you think about designing your dream salon, what's the very first thing you start thinking about? The chairs, the mirrors, the colors, but maybe you've even got a whole Pinterest board saved.

SPEAKER_01 0:14

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 0:15

But here's something I've learned after owning several salons. A salon can be absolutely beautiful and still be terrible to work in. So today I want to talk to you about how we're designing Panach and Company and what I'm doing differently this time, and some of the things I wish I'd understood when I designed my first salon. So go grab your coffee and let's talk about salon design. Welcome to All About Hair with Denise. This is where we talk about hair, confidence, and why a good hair day can seriously change your whole mood. It's like hanging out and chatting about life, feeling good, and loving your hair. No pressure, no perfection. So grab your coffee, settle in, and let's talk about loving your hair and yourself a little more. Okay,

Finding The Right Space For Panach

SPEAKER_00 1:09

thank you guys so much for just joining me on this journey of Panach and Company. I just love this. I love that I can almost journal this experience with you guys. I've had so many questions and so many comments and people rooting for us because I know last week I posted something about, you know, the um, we just found out that the owner of the space that we really want has another offer on the table from, I guess, a national account. I don't, I don't know who it is. I don't know if it's a restaurant, I don't know. And it's like, really? Come on. But we're still waiting. I did hear from the broker, and we should be here in a day or two. So hopefully I'll have some good news to report. But don't you worry, we do have a few fallback positions, other salon um retail spaces that we're looking at. We don't like them as much, but they would work. So Panachan Company is still gonna happen regardless. But let's just pretend like we're getting the space we want. Okay. And fingers crossed, good vibes coming our way.

Function First Design Versus Decor

SPEAKER_00 2:19

First, let's talk about salon design because this is so, so important. And I don't think a lot of people realize that designing the space and decorating the space are not the same thing. Designing is how the function of your space works, and decorating is how the aesthetics look. Think to yourself, who's gonna use the space? Stylists, are you gonna have full service? Are you gonna have aestheticians and massage therapists, makeup artists, manicurists? I mean, I don't know. I'm not, I'm just having hairstylists. But how many stylists need to work comfortably? What does that space look like? I can tell you that to work comfortably, blah blah blah blah blah blah. Sorry. Yeah. Um, to work in a comfortable area, you need about five square feet around your chair. So if that helps you space plan that a little bit better. And how does a guest move through the salon? Have you even thought about that? Now, this really, really helps if you have some kind of floor plan for the salon space. If you don't have a floor plan, I'm lucky enough I have one, but if you don't, you can go in, I've done this so many times, take that grid paper, and you can get that off Amazon or go to anywhere and buy grid paper, and it's like a quarter of an inch equals a foot. Go into the space and take measurements and map it out on that grid paper, exact measurements. And then you'll have it. And then mark on that grid paper where is the plumbing? Where are your electricity coming out of the wall? Okay, you need to know that. If there's any walls, if there's any doors, if there's anything that you need to know, and then you can really look at this on a piece of paper and imagine it. Also, think about how the stylist move through the salon. Do you want the stylists having to go all the way back to the break room to mix their color and then all the way back to the styling floor? Or do you want them to have a color bar so they just have a few steps to take? Think about where does everything actually live? Where's your storage? How are you gonna house things? What happens when you're busy? Imagine it really busy. Do you have enough seating for your guests? And what happens when you're fully staffed? Is there enough room to move around? I know one of my salons before we moved to a bigger space. Man, we had that place rocking and rolling, and we were working booty to booty. We used to say butt to butt, but uh um we were rocking and we were it was fun. It was fun. We turned the music up and we did great hair, and but it got crowded. If your salon only works when it's quiet, it doesn't work, okay? So just think about future. Let's

Client Flow Check-In Waiting Retail

SPEAKER_00 5:25

talk about the client journey. So let's just pretend like you're walking into Pinoch for the first time. What's the client gonna see? Where do they check in? Where does their coat or their handbag go? Do they hang it at each styling station? Do you have a coat closet? Where do they wait? How do they find the restroom? How do they move from styling chair to shampoo bowl and back? Where do they check out? Where do they encounter the retail? I'm gonna explain each of these steps and how I've come to this, okay? And this is from experience. When a client first walks into your salon, what do you want them to see? Well, do you want them to see your reception desk and say, Hi, welcome, welcome to my salon. Uh most people do, but think about this. I I designed a salon one time, I did exactly that. The front desk was front center. You walked in, it was centered to that front door, and then I had retail on both sides of the front desk, both sides, and I had waiting area on both sides, but it confused the client and it confused the stylist. First of all, they didn't know where to go sit, but my retail sales went down because the retail was all over the place. So I had an epiphany. I don't know how I came to that. Probably a suggestion from someone. I moved the front desk to the side and put the retail on that front wall. So the minute the client came in, retail hit him in the face, didn't hit him, but it was the first thing you saw. The sitting area was right in front of the retail, and the reception desk was to the side. Our retail started going back up. There was no confusion where the client needed to sit. And guess what? When they were sitting, they were looking at the retail. You need to think about things like this, okay? You don't necessarily need your reception desk right in their face the moment they walk in. Yes, you need it somewhere so you can welcome them. It doesn't need to be all the way to the back, like an Apple store, but it does need to be somewhere up there, but not right when they walk in. Okay, so where do they check in? I just told you, they will find the reception desk, you will say hello, they can check in with you, or maybe you don't even have a desk. Maybe you are a deskless salon. You do need to decide that because there's a lot of salons like that. I still feel like people want to be greeted by a person and they don't want to check into a kiosk, but you do you. If they're gonna check into a kiosk, you need it front and center, and you need some signage that says, hey, enter your name. We'll be right with you. Do you have a coat closet? You know, that is something that I almost forgot about, but we are gonna add something. I just don't know if it's gonna be a coat rack, a closet, or one of those coat racks that it's on wheels. It almost looks like it belongs in a retail place. I don't know. We haven't figured that one out yet. Where does your client wait? You got to check out the waiting area. I know one salon owner who doesn't have her waiting area up by the front desk. She has it in the middle of the salon. The guest can actually watch all the action going on. That's kind of a cool idea. And they actually have like a coffee bar in the middle of the salon. So, how easily do they find the restroom? Well, here's something. If you don't do this, I think you should utilize this in your salon, especially for brand new clients. Because think about it. Brand new clients come into the salon and they're a little bit apprehensive anyway, a little bit nervous. It's a new salon. They don't know anybody, they don't know where to go, they don't know what to do. So your front desk staff needs to be on point. There should be some kind of salon tour. Yes, a tour of your salon. Your front desk person should say, Hi, you must be merry. I know this is your first time here. We're so glad you're here. We'll get you checked in. Can I hang up your coat? While you're waiting for your stylists, let me give you a tour of the salon. Now, not only does this show them where everything is, so they don't have to ask. I hate it when a client has to ask, where's the restroom? It just goes to show that obviously they were not given a tour. But as you're giving the tour and you're showing them where's the restroom, oh, here's our color bar, oh, here's our makeup station, we offer complimentary makeup, touch-ups at the end of every appointment. Oh, here's our coffee bar, we have different coffee drinks, or we have sodas, or whatever it is that you offer. What you're doing is you're telling them, not only giving them a tour of the salon, but you're giving them a little bit of taste of other services that they don't know that we even offer. And you're just making them feel at home. Think about if somebody came to your house and you would say, Oh, come on in, welcome, let me show you around so make you comfortable. Okay, that's what you're trying to do. So you need somebody on point, whether you have just one person who's your welcome person or it's your front desk person, but you do want to let them know exactly where the bathroom is. That is one thing, especially if it's all the way in the back. Now, how do they move from the styling chair to the shampoo bowl and back? Think about this. Do they have to go through the whole salon and traipse through? Or is there like a back way they can get to the shampoo bowl so they don't have to go through the waiting area with wet hair to get back to the I don't know. You have to think about that. Because think, think in terms of how the client feels when they're in your space. I mean, having wet hair and your hair up in a towel, most people are kind of uncomfortable like that. Think about it. I mean, we're around it all day, every day, but most people don't want to traipse through the reception area to get back to the styling station. Where do they check out? Can they check out at the chair on an iPad? Or do they have to come up to the front desk and check out? Or does the front desk person come to them with an iPad and checks them out? Where do they see the retail? In my space, I love the retail front and center. I and I love it all over the place. I like to create little vignettes of retail, change it up every three months. So it's new every time somebody comes in, it's fresh. I like everything neat and in their categories, but I like it sprinkled throughout with the main part of the retail right there. Somewhere near the front desk, but right there. Definitely when they walk in. Basically, I want Panache to feel welcoming and elevated, but not intimidating. I want people to walk in and go, wow, okay. Hi. Not, wow, I don't know if I belong here or not. No, no, no, no. You've got to think about if you're gonna open a salon, what is it that you want your guests to feel the minute they walk in the door? That's thinking like a client. Now

Designing For Stylists Tools Power Towels

SPEAKER_00 12:45

we're gonna think like a stylist. This is important because you want to think about what stylists notice and not just what clients notice. And that's a whole different ballgame. We're gonna talk about where is the color actually mixed. And I kind of alluded to this before, and I definitely alluded to it in my video on YouTube. So if you want to watch that, go over and watch that. But okay, where is the color mixed? Some of you might opt to mix it in the back room, in the break room, in a dispensary. That's what we used to call it. However, I have learned that clients are really interested in the chemistry and the magic that goes on. And if you can bring your color out to the salon floor, like build a color bar somewhere on your salon floor, your client can see that there's actually mixing going on and that it's not just one tube, a little bit of that, and you're good to go. You're actually thinking, you're using chemistry. It's something that they can't recreate at home. And I just think that's where the magic is. If you can get your color mixing area out on the floor or somewhere in the public eye, I just I love that. But you're not me. If you're more comfortable mixing it in the in the back room, okay, do that. Stylists also need to know where the heck are the towels? Where do you keep your towels? We always keep our towels back by the shampoo bowls. I don't know, every state's different, but they should be covered, meaning you can't just leave your towels up out in the open. And where do the turt dirty towels go? You definitely don't want just this like dirty hamper of dirty towels just floating around. I've always created like secret little holes to toss your towels into, and then there's you can open up the cabinet below it and get the dirty towels out. What about tool storage? You do have to think about this for your stations because there has to be enough room at each station. I've seen stations that don't have anything, uh any drawers, that is. You need a little bit of space so the stylist can either one store their tools if they're if they don't share a station. We always shared stations because we used to book nine to three, three to nine, so double double duty at each station, which you can do, but you do need some tool storage, and it that could be the station or it could be a station on wheels, and then they just roll it back to wherever you store that. It just depends on how much room you have in your salon. And then what about electrical outlets? Oh my goodness, electrical outlets. You need a lot of them, and sometimes we don't think about that, and they all need to be on their own circuits. Each station needs to be on their own breaker panel, you know, on the breaker panel. Because think about it, you have blow dryers and straightening irons and curling irons, and that's a lot of electricity. And if you have six stations on one breaker, all it takes is somebody to turn on their blow dryer and it makes all six go off, and then nobody has power. And how do I know that? Trust me, I know. Just plan it out before you even start. Uh, have your electrician see if they can do the wiring per station. Blow dryers. Now, in my salons, I love the freestyle systems, those are the blow dryers that hang from the ceiling. Reason why I love them, first of all, it's a pretty good wow factor when somebody walks into your salon. It's a very cool wow factor. It's like, whoa! But it also makes the salon look very nice and neat because you don't have all these cords all over the place. And it also is wonderful for the stylist because the stylist takes the tension and the weight off of their shoulders and their arms. It's just wonderful. Now, I'll leave the link to Freestyle Systems. I don't get paid. I don't I just like them. And if you've not checked into them, they're a little bit pricey. Okay, I'm not gonna lie. They're like they they can range anywhere from oh my goodness, $1,200 to $3,000 per station, depending on what lights you get, what what blow dryer you get. However, I love them. So you gotta think about what blow dryers. Lighting, that's a whole other issue, right? You have to have enough light. And it has to be in the right places. So whether that's track lighting, whether that's sconces on the wall, whether that's those mirrors with the LED lights on them, whether that's overhanging pendants, whether it's chandeliers, for God's sakes, take the fluorescent lighting out of there, please. And where does your color go? What about the extra color storage? Do you have enough storage? Again, that's the color bar. I would think if you're having it out on the styling floor, you would do the color bar. And that's where your stylists are also going to formulate, too. And if you have assistants or associates or brand new stylists who are learning and you require them to do work on their doll heads and stuff, where do they actually work? Do they work on the styling floor? I always say yes because, first of all, guests are really interested in that. They like to see that we teach and that the assistants are actually learning new ways of doing things, right? And it gets them excited, gets everybody excited because it's kind of cool. I mean, it is kind of cool. If you want to build a salon where stylists can have long, successful careers, you need to design a workplace that makes their jobs easier, not harder. And that's what I'm really considering when I'm designing my space as well.

Costs Growth Comfort And Retail Strategy

SPEAKER_00 18:41

I want you to realize that every square foot costs money. It does. So ask yourself: is this square footage helping the business? What do I mean by that? You have to balance out if you have enough stations to grow. Because what if you only have enough space for four stations? How are you going to grow? Or are you always going to just be a four-station salon? How we grew in limited space before was double shifting, staying open longer, seven days a week, and double shifting the chairs. And that worked until it didn't work anymore. And we had to open a second space. But you also have to balance out comfort versus capacity. You don't want so many stations in there that it becomes a circus. And then you have to have enough retail space. And again, I know that's a hot topic in in salons now because some salons don't even have retail in their spaces, which I think they're really missing out on. Because if you are teaching your clients how to do something, they want the magic that makes it happen. And if you don't have it to sell to them, they're going to walk over to Alta or Target or CVS or somewhere and try to buy something that they think can replicate what you just did. What's going to happen is they're going to be upset at you because what they bought at the drugstore didn't do exactly what you did in the salon because you were using a different product, but you didn't have the product to sell them. Hmm. Whole other podcast, okay? You need retail space. And you need plenty of storage. There's so many things that we store: foils and perms and perm rods and towels, and you know, the list goes on and on. You need enough reception area, but again, reception area, those chairs, those waiting room chairs, they don't pay the bills. So you don't need a ton of reception area. You just need enough. It doesn't hurt for people to have to stand up and shop your retail spaces. I'm just saying, I'm just saying. Shampoo area, you need a little bit, you know, you need enough that you don't get backed up, but you don't need so much that takes away from styling area. And the back of the house, I always say keep the um break room small enough that people don't go back there and just take naps. Now, the break area should be nice and it should be a place that somebody can have lunch and that they can unwind just a little bit, have a cup of coffee or something. But it shouldn't be so comfortable. I don't know. It doesn't earn you money. The break room is usually the broke room. When we met with our contractor and we start putting like dollar signs next to all of these ideas, oh my gosh, my priorities got very clear very quickly. The freestyle systems, yes, they're expensive, but I really, really want them. Okay. So what does that mean? Are we going to have them over every station? Probably, but we're going to start out with six and grow to 12. So I'm going to have the electrician wire for all 12, but I'm not going to order all 12 of them. That way I could save them on my build-out costs.

Education-Driven Layout And Culture

SPEAKER_00 22:16

This segment's going to be for anybody who's planning to do education in your salon, which we do. I mean, we have a lot of education. We don't want education to just happen like in the break room. I want it full focus on the styling floor every single day, and it's going to be part of the culture. New stylists are going to be working with us and we want them training on the floor. If they're not actually assisting a stylist, guess what? They are working on a mannequin or they're bringing in a model or something. Or maybe it's a slow Tuesday afternoon. Maybe a stylist can demonstrate how to do something. And guess what? Your other clients are watching this. It's so cool, right? Maybe you have a space for hands-on education when the salon's closed and you need space for that. So maybe your stations are on wheels and you can move them around. Will you have visiting educators come to you and teach classes? Do you have a space for that? Do you have a smart TV or a projector? Do you plan on hosting classes? You just have to think about that before you do all of your design work. At our salon, we're not trying to squeeze education into the salon. We're designing the salon around the fact that education is part of who we are.

Exposed Ceilings Lighting White Walls Timeless Finish

SPEAKER_00 23:37

Okay, here's some of the decisions I'm wrestling with right now. Because I don't have everything figured out. Trust me. It something just changed yesterday. My husband and I went to the salon space to look at what was behind the drop ceiling. And I think I've decided I want the exposed ceiling. I have this vision of just opening up the ceiling, and I love what that looks like in my head. I want it spray painted white. Very bright, very California-like. I don't want anything dark. I want everything to be light and bright and airy and pretty. But I have to think about the HVAC system. I have to think about the electrical and the lighting. And what about the acoustics? Because when you take that drop ceiling out, everything's going to be echo, especially if we have like this cement floor that we're thinking about doing. So I have to think about how can we do something so it's not so echoey. And what is the cost? I don't even know. I just gave my contractor the idea yesterday. So he's going to have to tell me what the numbers are. You know, sometimes just the space, what you have in your head, this the space won't allow you to design. Um, so you have to keep that in mind too, because it does make this whole process a little bit daunting. Yeah, put you in your place real quick. Okay, now when you have the design space, then you can start talking about ways to make it pretty. That's when your Pinterest board comes in, right? And you don't have to figure out every single furnishing because there's so many different places that offer salon furnishings, which you don't not necessarily always have to use a salon furnishing place. Now, maybe for your salon chairs and your shampoo stations, of course, but you don't necessarily have to use these big companies that just specialize in salons for your stations. You can get real creative. You can go on Wayfair, you can go to Home Depot, you can go to IKEA, you can look on Amazon, make sure you you get something that can withstand like heat and water, but you can come up with all kinds of things. I mean, I've seen people go to thrift stores and get dressers and paint them all the same color, but they're all different. It just depends on what feeling you want. Our aesthetic is warm woods but light toned, soft white on the wall. I always think that white on the walls of a salon is better than color because whatever color you choose for the walls, it's going to reflect on the hair color. And then you're not going to get true hair color. You know, I've seen salons painted orange, I've seen salons painted green, blue, you know that is reflecting on the hair color. Just keep that in mind. You can do an accent wall, but I wouldn't make the overall salon that color. And if you want some ideas of what color of whites to paint on your wall, I do have a little PDF. Just hit me up, I'll send it to you. There's different shades of white. I'm going with a very soft white. It's not stark white, so it's a softer white. But I'm going to have everything that color. And then I'm going to decide where to put the accent color of blue. And then I'm going to have beautiful lighting. Some of it track lighting, some of it sconces, some of it uh chandeliers. I just want it to be warm, but no clutter. And I don't want it to be overly trendy. I want it to be a place that somebody walks in and they go, Wow, I feel like I belong here. It's pretty, it's nice, it's not too feminine because gentlemen are going to come in and get their hair done too. I don't want somebody to walk into Panachan Company five years from now and immediately know what year we designed it. Okay, so I want it to be timeless. So here's what I would tell you if you were designing your first salon. If you're dreaming

Saturday Simulation Final Advice And Tease

SPEAKER_00 27:50

about opening up that first salon, before you choose one chair, one mirror, one paint color, walk through an imaginary Saturday when every chair is full. Where is everybody? Where are the clients? Where are your stylists? Where are your assistants? Where are the towels? Where's the color? Where's the retail? Where are people bumping into each other? Design that salon. Then you can make it beautiful. We're getting closer. What started as an empty room is finally beginning to feel like Panachan Company, at least on paper it is, right? So next we're getting into one of my favorite parts, and that's when we choose the actual furnishings. And I tell you, we've been round and round about this. Everything styling chairs, shampoo bowls, mirrors, lighting, reception desks, all of it. And I'm gonna share where I think it's worth spending the money and where I absolutely don't think you need to spend the money. Okay, so that's next week. And always remember, when you know better, you do better. I'll talk to you next week.