Bellingham salon to host March benefit for the inbound elderly

 

 

Each week, The Bellingham Herald takes a look closer at a construction project or checks in with a business in Whatcom County. This week: Silhouettes Salon and Day Spa.

WHATS NEW

Silhouettes Salon and Day Spa – located on Telegraph Road since 1987 – is planning a benefit next month to raise money for the inbound handicapped and the elderly. On March 27, Silhouettes will donate money earned from 10 a.m. to noon to the Whatcom Volunteer Center for programs where volunteers shop for groceries and do chores around the house for people who are homebound due to illness or injury.

The salon also will accept donations and raffle off spa packages for the charity. In the past, Silhouettes raised about $3,000 per year for various local organizations like The Boys & Girls Club, Opportunity Council and Lydia Place, said Mary Jo Gran, who owns the salon with Cheryl Christian and Gina Green.

Gran and Christian, both Whatcom County locals, bought the salon they worked at from the previous owner in 1987. They kept the name, Silhouettes, but added a spa to the space later.

WHAT IT DOES

Silhouettes is a full-service salon offering customers a wide spectrum of spa treatments like acrylic nails, manicures and pedicures, facials, massages therapy, body wraps, hair cuts, styling and coloring.

OWNERSHIP

Gran left a career as a doctor’s office nurse to open Silhouettes with Christian.

“I just decided I wanted to do something new,” Gran said of her choice to leave the medical field. “I got too attached to patients. They get sick and die and it was really just a hard thing … and I loved the beauty industry.”

Two years after opening, she and Christian moved their business a block away to its current location on Telegraph Road near Animal Emergency Care, where it’s been ever since.

Green bought into the business two years ago after graduating spa school in Vancouver, B.C.

EMPLOYEES

19 women work at the facility.

CLAIM TO FAME

Silhouettes certainly has staying power. The salon has been in business for more than 20 years in Whatcom County,

Green thinks that Silhouettes’ convenient spot just off the freeway helps lure customers from up and down the Interstate 5 corridor, from Sedro-Woolley to White Rock, B.C.

The salon also found a way to increase its retail sales by adding a new facial product line to its selection two years ago. Last year retail sales were about $12,000 – an increase of about 75 percent, Green said.

“We’ve been holding steady,” Green said. “It’s tough out there but … women will go and get their hair done regardless of how tough times are. I think people still want to feel good and have stress relief from the spa.”

SOURCES: Co-owners Mary Jo Gran and Gina Green

SILHOUETTES SALON AND DAY SPA

321 Telegraph Rd.

Bellingham, WA 98226

734-0246

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