Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Beauty Shop Tour


It is dark,rainy and windy here today so I decided to start a tour of my beauty shop that is always bright from artificial light. It is in my basement but my house was built on a hill so it is really the first floor in the back of the house. I have a gravel stairway, with gardens on both sides to get to the back of the house.
I have had my own shop since 1981. Originally it was on a busy city street and I had girls working for me. In 1988 I decided to work alone and move to my house. The business has been good to me. I raised 2 kids with that as my only income. My weekly customers, what we in the business called our "bread & butter", are leaving me thru death, moving south after retirement and going to nursing homes. My choice to remedy a cash flow problem was to get another job, thus the grocery store position. It was very hard to leave my comfort zone but it has been good for me in a lot of ways. The biggest of which is getting health insurance after 2 years on the job. Another plus, I feel it has improved my memory. I didn't think I could ever remember everything I needed to! I have gone from cashier, to working the service desk, to the cash office. I work the beauty shop Wednesday thru Saturday days and the store 6 to 10 five nights a week. I'm busy but it is better than being bored!
Here are my first shop pics. Do you know what this is?

If you do, you are dating yourself!

NO! I do not use this! It has been a great conversation starter and I have heard a lot of great stories. This is how they used to do perms. They would clamp a heated clamp on each curler. I can smell the burning hair now! I'm surprised people didn't get electrocuted. I couldn't resist buying it a few years ago. It was actually used in a home shop a couple blocks from my shop. A new owner found it in a basement and didn't know what it was.
Well, that's my first beauty shop entry. I hope you enjoyed it.

2 comments:

savvycityfarmer said...

I just saw one of those contraptions in an antique mall where I have a booth...kinda silly looking


How've ya been???
Chat soon.

Susie said...

I can almost remember seeing one of these when I went with my Grandma to the beauty shop. What women did for beauty!