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Eleven beauty salon owners from across the nation have been selected as MY SALON Suite’s 2021 Suite Elite Featured Members. This year’s program is centered on helping these extraordinary entrepreneurs Make It Yours: Next Level through several unique opportunities designed to propel their business to even greater success.

“I’m so glad scrunchies are back,” says Nicole De La Garza, owner of DLG Styles Hair at MY SALON Suite in West University Place.

Eleven beauty salon owners from across the nation have been selected as part of MY SALON Suite’s 2021 Suite Elite Featured Member program. This year’s theme, Make It Yours: Next Level, will celebrate the winners’ accomplishments and unique styles with personalized rewards and promotions, and will also position them for continued success through once-in-a-lifetime opportunities to elevate their businesses.

The chosen stylists are members of MY SALON Suite, a co-working style space where salon professionals provide beauty services to their clients in private, fully equipped, custom suites. There are more than 200 franchised MY SALON Suite locations across the U.S. and Canada with more than 5,000 beauty professional members, collectively called the Suite Elite.

Tim and Marty Commons discuss owning a MY SALON Suite.

Tolisano and spouse Jay have three My Salon Suite locations in Fairfield, Shelton and Stamford, which have maxed out their available capacity leasing suites to just over 80 tenants across the three locations. All saw their businesses upended by Gov. Ned Lamont’s executive order for salons to close March 20, with the order not lifted until early June and rules governing sanitizing salons and limited client visitations.

That left the Tolisanos scrambling to ready their suites for the reopening, even as they waived rent for their tenants who are solo entrepreneurs spanning hair and beauty services, some with limited track records that put them at the back of the line for some business assistance programs that have emerged in the wake of the pandemic.

“We needed to … make sure that these professionals were not responsible for rent during the shutdown, because our goal is to get everyone back in — and make sure they get back without having debt hanging over their heads,” Tolisano said. “Our business wouldn’t be possible without them; their business wouldn’t be possible without us. It’s a … symbiotic relationship.”

“We have some of the most comprehensive protocols in the salon industry and moving services outside will actually make it harder for us to adhere to the sanitation regulations we already have in place in an environment that is more controlled. Our hope with this letter is to bring attention to this safe way of opening up our salon suites.”

Salon suite concepts MY SALON Suite, Sola Salon Studios, Salons by JC, Phenix Salon Suites and Image Studios banded together to issue a call to action to Gov. Newsom, representing 1,000+ locations nationally with 30,000+ self-employed beauty pros in 44 states. The suite concepts say more than 2.6 million services are performed in their establishments each month nationwide, with zero outbreaks to customers reported at any location.

At MY SALON Suite, clients are admitted by appointment only and are met at the door after a text indicates their stylist is ready. A 15-minute gap to re-sanitize rooms is now sandwiched in between two clients. Clients and stylists are both required to wear a mask and gloves. Leja added that her salon’s suite-style […]