As a budding stylist in 2011, April Allen opened Spoiled Salon in Vancouver, Washington. Now, she and her husband are the proud owner of two full-service salons that service clients while also prioritizing their professional stylists.
To learn more about Spoiled Salon in Vancouver, Washington (including how to book an appointment), read on.
The Brand
Allen got her beauty license in 2007 in the North Bay of San Francisco before moving to Washington to be closer to her family. She jumped around to a few different salons as an independent stylist right out of school, but couldn’t find the right fit for her.
“I was looking for the right fit for me culture-wise, and couldn’t find what I was looking for as far as how I wanted to manage my clientele and what I wanted to do with my business,” Allen explains.
This led her to open Spoiled Salon in 2011. Now, 10 years later, she runs two successful salons with her husband and business partner, Skylar Allen. As a long-time small business owner in the Vancouver, Washington community, Allen loves to give back as much as possible, whether it’s donating to the local youth groups or sports team. Every year on the anniversary of their opening date, they also pick a different non-profit organization to raise money for.
“Because I'm a small business owner, I pretty much saved all of my own money and started this on my own with no investment, so one of the things that we've always said is that we couldn't do it without our community,” Allen explains. “So it's really important that we give back to our community with those profits.”
The Locations
After a year like 2020 that challenged the salon industry, and stylists, as a whole, Allen decided to run her business in an entirely different way. The original Spoiled Salon location has turned into an all-rental location, where independent pros book their own chairs and essentially work as their own bosses. Each stylist creates their own schedule, service menus, prices, and customer communications. Clients can expect a different salon experience in each room, which the stylists are free to make their own.
“It gave the stylists the freedom to choose what worked well for them, how they run their business, and sort of just gave them their own branding,” Allen says.
The new location, which opened in 2021, is all staff, housing a group of salon pros that are trained in everything from balayage to hair extension installation.
“I wanted to separate the two to give my independent stylists true independence where they didn't feel like they were on like an employee team, where they could kind of do their own thing whereas with my employees, I wanted to give them a group of people that all felt the same about the big picture,” Allen says. “There's consistency and there's education standards that we have as far as ongoing education in our (employee) location…We are very much about creating a unified culture.”
The Products
While Allen loves all the brands across L'Oréal’s professional division, she has a soft spot for Pureology.
“I’ve used Pureology since I was an apprentice in beauty school, and they offer such a wide variety of what products clients are asking for,” Allen says.
Clients can shop from a variety of brands at each salon, ranging from Redken’s care products to Pureology color-protecting styling formulas.
The Services
While Spoiled Salon stylists are trained across the board of popular salon services, they found their niche in low-maintenance color and cuts.
“We just really want to make sure that what we can offer to our clients is something that they can maintain,” Allen says. “We definitely have our platinum blondes and vivid colors, but we also love to give our clients something that doesn't have to be touched up every four weeks that they can actually go a while and just come in for hair care and maintenance and treatments in between.”
When it comes to color services, Spoiled Salon offers everything from full balayage($155+) to full foil highlights($100+). Spoiled stylists offer pixie($40+) and cropped short haircuts($45+), and also long or thick haircuts($55+). The salon can also do several types of hair extensions (price decided upon consultation) and hair treatments like a Brazilian blowout($250).
The Details
Spoiled Salon And Spa are located at 2520 Columbia House Blvd Suite 102
Vancouver WA, 98661 and 5500 NE 109th Ct Suite L Vancouver WA, 98662. To book an appointment, visit www.spoiledspaandsalon.com.
