Senior Salons finds retirement communities fit its style

Each week, 84-year-old Lorraine Salkin gets her hair shampooed and curled at Senior Salons, the beauty parlor down the hall from her room at the Merrill Gardens retirement community near Seattle's University Village.

"I like coming here because it's convenient," she says. "I don't have to wait for a ride. Plus, they're good."

She's one of 1,500 seniors each month who get their hair or nails done in one of the 37 local retirement communities that use Senior Salons.

At the U Village Merrill Gardens, the average resident's age is "late 70s, early 80s," said general manager Derrick Skinner. Although Merrill Gardens offers assisted-living services, many seniors choose to live there for social reasons, he said, and the salon's service is part of that environment.

"If Senior Salons makes it a fun spa-day, the majority of residents will embrace it," Skinner said.

Because Senior Salons caters to an older crowd, they are a little more subdued than mainstream salons. The background music from KIXI-AM (880) is Johnny Mathis, Henry Mancini, Barbra Streisand — "the music they're used to listening to," said Barbara Bollinger, the company's founder and owner.

"Seniors don't like a lot of activity, a lot of noise, a lot of ruckus. We keep things a little quieter for their comfort."

Special sensitivity, and special equipment, are required to serve some of the elderly customers. For instance, Senior Salons has a "comfort cape" that allows wheelchair-using seniors to stay seated while getting their hair shampooed.

Since some residents have memory loss, there isn't a no-show fee. The salon phones customers the morning of their appointment as a reminder.

This time of year, wreaths of artificial orange leaves are hung over several of the salon's mirrors to help the seniors "feel more of a sense of place and time," said Bollinger. The seasonal decorations "make seniors with memory-loss issues feel more comfortable."

Cheryl Green, who has worked as a hairstylist for Senior Salons for four years, said she often becomes friends with her clients. Compared with other salons, Green said, "I feel much more appreciated working with seniors. I always look forward to going to work."

Senior Salons opened in 1998, after the executive director of The Northshore House in Kenmore asked Bollinger to cut and style hair once per week.

Bollinger was reluctant, since she was busy running a salon out of her home and raising three kids, ages 4, 6 and 8.

"The executive director at the time basically begged me to do it," said Bollinger. "I said I'd help her out one day per week, and that turned into three days a week, and that turned into five days per week."

By 2005, Senior Salons employed five people and served five senior communities. Bollinger couldn't expand further because it was too difficult to keep track of the customers and locations.

"I was just running around and handwriting down what residents owed," she said.

So Bollinger hired her friend Elisa Tobin to be her operations manager, and Tobin established a computerized database that allowed the company to grow very quickly.

To get Senior Salons into new retirement communities, the company uses networking, rather than advertising.

In 2008, the company signed a contract to open eight new salons in Era Living communities. It also has a presence in many of the Seattle-area Merrill Gardens and Áegis Living communities.

Not all of the Senior Salon branches are profitable, Bollinger said, but the company keeps the unprofitable branches open if she thinks they have potential.

"We're holding our own in a little, untapped market," said Bollinger. "We just found a way to cater to seniors."

Kaitlin Strohschein: 206-515-5618 or kstrohschein@seattletimes.com