Volume Salon and Spa hairdressers chat with customers while snipping and styling. “Be your own kind of beautiful” is stenciled on the wall, situated between mirrors that allow customers to look back at themselves and contemplate the phrase.
The Hillsdale salon reopened in June 2013 on East Bacon Street across from Hillsdale Community Library. Their expanded services include massages, which provides an alternative to massages offered by the college’s Health Center.
“Every person that comes through the door is different, so everybody has a different kind of beautiful,” said Volume Salon and Spa owner Kelly Dunlap.
The salon offers a 15-minute massage for $20, and a 30-minute massage for $35.
Dunlap decided to move from West Carleton Road to her new location to accommodate her expanding business. Her staff nearly doubled with the move, and Dunlap said they are busy.
“We moved here to expand our services to include manicures, pedicures, and facials, makeup, and massage,” Dunlap said. “We went from having no receptionist to having three.”
Dunlap owns the business with her husband and said it is difficult to balance being wife, mother, and business owner.
Although there are several other salons in town, Dunlap claims hers is different.
“We have everything under one roof, and we have the best people,” she said.
Stylist Morgan Page is one of those superior staff members. Her business card echoes the “Be your own kind of beautiful” stenciled on the wall. It quotes Psalm 139 reminding her customers that they are “fearfully and wonderfully made.”
Page plans to work as a stylist part time and help her fiancé start a farm.
“I love it,” Page said. “The atmosphere is very lively. There’s never a dull moment.”
She said that people come in with unrealistic expectations sometimes.
“We’re not magicians, we’re beauticians,” Page said. “People will come in after box coloring their hair black and then want it platinum blonde.”
Page said there is a teamwork mentality at Volume Salon.
“Everyone here helps one another out,” she said. “If someone needs something people will jump in and help out other stylists. We all have our busy times so we understand.”
