CHI - Spring 2009 - (Page 24) SALON PROFILE Eco-Friendly in New Hampshire Verde Salon proves it’s possible to be haute without additives. Green hair may seem like the result of a dye job gone terribly wrong, but in the hands Reina Rodriguez and her staff, it’s simply gorgeous. At Verde Salon in charming Nashua, New Hampshire, chemicals are forbidden—from the shampoo bowl to the delicious beverages served up at the juice bar. In fact, “verde” means “green” in Spanish, and the green approach to beauty has been so heartily embraced by locals, that Rodriguez is already making plans to expand even though Verde has been open for less than a year. Eco Beauty The dynamic 28-year-old owner already has 13 years of hair styling experience under her belt. So when her muchadmired former employer Steve Izzo of Portfolio Salon decided to retire last year, she was ready to try her hand at owning and operating a beauty business. She found an existing salon, gutted it and rehabbed it in an eco-friendly manner, using low-VOC paint, installing bamboo flooring and energy-efficient lighting and even sourcing and recycling existing salon equipment. The aforementioned juice bar offers fresh, natural juices, coffees and teas. Only eco-friendly cleaning products are used to keep the salon fresh and clean. And in a further effort to sustain and reuse, Verde saves all hair clippings and donates them to an organization called Matter of Trust, where they are woven into mats used to clean up oil spills worldwide. Verde’s all-natural philosophy extends to hair products, too. “All of our products are paraben- and plastic-free,” Rodriguez explains, “and we use CHI hair color, which is ammonia-free and lightens with wheat protein. Our clients love it!” Verde also continued 24 Volume V, Issue 18
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.