Uniquely named salon keeps serving customers

Published 9:23 pm Monday, October 23, 2017

After a bad hair day, some people might want to curl up and die. Or less dramatically, visit local beauty parlor, Curl Up & Dye Salon, for a new style.

Owner Golda Brown said she bought Style & Set Salon in January 2015 and remade it into her own place.

“It was Style & Set Salon for well over 20 years and they were getting out of the business, and I purchased it, revamped everything, brought it into the 2000s and changed the name into something that fit today’s society,” Brown said.

Brown said the name for her salon has two origins, one from another small salon in Alabama and the other from the film ‘The Runaway Bride.’

“I originally found Curl Up & Dye’s name when we were coming home from a trip about 20 years ago. There was a little salon in a little town in Alabama and I saw the name and thought it was cool,” she said. “In the movie ‘The Runaway Bride’ the name of the salon where Richard Gere’s hair is changed colors is Curl Up & Dye.”

Brown said she got into cosmetology through her mother.

“My mother had a cosmetology license she got when I was a baby, so we had a beauty shop so to speak in our downstairs of our house where she did friends and family’s hair,” she said. “I started doing hair when I was in the fourth grade, so I just kind of grew up with it and of course all of my Barbie [dolls] had the best hair.”

Brown even met her husband, Clay, through doing hair.

“I actually got a date with my husband due to doing my friend’s hair and not turning it green,” she said.

Brown said her salon continues on as a family business with the hope that customers also feel like they’re part of the family.

“This is pretty much a family business. My mama’s licenses are still here and she does hair from time to time. Lisa Bexton (my friend and coworker) is here with me all the time. My daughter [Rachel] is apprenticing,” she said. “We want our customers to feel like they’re part of our family when they come into our beauty shop home.”

The salon not only does hair, but also does manicures and pedicures along with waxing.

The salon also has a take a book, leave a book shelf for customers to exchange, Brown said.

A priority for the business is to make its customers happy, Brown said.

“I love watching people’s faces when they are able to get the look that they want to have for whatever occasion, whether it’s an everyday look or whether it’s for something special, such as a wedding or a prom. I like to have them happy. We always try to be happy. We want customers to leave here happy,” she said. “We are 100 percent for our customer.”

Brown said the salon works mainly by appointment, but she and Bexton will go to customers’ homes and public places such as hospitals and nursing homes too.

Before owning the salon, Brown worked as a cosmetology instructor at West Georgia Technical College for six years.

When she’s not at her business, she teaches aesthetics and barbering at Columbus Technical College. Ironically enough, she said she teaches her students not to call color dye.

“When I teach cosmetology the first thing I tell students when we’re learning color is you don’t call it dye, it’s not hair dye. You dye eggs,” she said. “But of course, it’s in my name so I can’t get mad at them about that.”

Curl Up & Dye is located at 307 South Greenwood Street.