Trick or Treat: How to Get Your Salon Ready for Spooky (or Not-So-Spooky) Season

Here’s why and how you should bring the spirit(s) of the season to your beauty business this October.

Lurking just around the corner, waiting for its synthesizer sting (and the end of October) to strike, lies Halloween. The merrily macabre holiday’s growing popularity among people of all ages means it’s anything but childish to celebrate the zenith of spooky season. It also means that savvy beauty businesses will join in the fun even before the 31st.

But how can you make your salon, a place dedicated to looking and feeling good, also become the hottest place in the neighborhood for gruesome and ghoulish delights? We’re so glad you asked! Cue the maniacal laughter sound effect, and let’s break down three surefire ways to bring Halloween to your salon.

Decorate to the death (or just to your delight)

Before you start preparing your salon for Halloween, you must assess your aesthetics and comfort levels. Even sticklers for the most elegant decor may make affordances for a few tissue paper ghosts here and there, but the lower key you go, the less impact you’ll make. If you’re willing to take a bigger leap beyond your standard style, the next step is to think about your salon like a horror movie and your clients like its audience.

If your stylists work with young kids, you should probably only decorate with the kind of spooky stuff you’d find in a G-rated film — cartoon bats and misty cauldrons, that sort of thing. If your clients are mostly a range of adults, you can push to creepy (but not gorey) monsters and other PG material. Finally, if your salon has an edgier vibe and you know your clientele’s tastes well, you can go for the sorts of freaky fun PG-13 decorations adorning the aisles of your local big box store turned seasonal shop.

Encourage stylists to sport creepy cool costumes

An expertly decorated room can do a lot for your Halloween vibe, but only the stars of your salon — the stylists — can complete the experience. Coming to work in a costume should never be mandated, but contests and celebratory social media posts are a great way to encourage employees to join in the fun. Anything that’s practical for working in (and which follows the rating you decided on in the previous step) should be on the table, but here are a few costume ideas that could have an extra impact for Halloween-loving stylists:

• Sweeney Todd: Truth No. 1: You don’t need a barber’s license to dress up as the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Truth No. 2: Everybody looks cool with a big shock of white in their hair.

• Sadako: The ghostly antagonist of the Ring films (renamed Samara for its American adaptations) is a horror and hair icon, and any stylist who rocks straightened extensions can pay her tribute. Bringing in a TV prop to climb out of before each appointment is optional but highly recommended.

• Glam Leatherface: Question his hobbies all you like, but The Texas Chainsaw Massacre villain never greeted guests at the family dinner table without putting his (best) face on first.

Help clients embrace their inner goth

Spooky nail designs are an essential component for many Halloween looks, whether clients want to be their own goth GF every day of the month or they have ambitious plans for their big reveal on the 31st. Show them how it’s done by adding special limited-time offerings to your menu for creepy-cute cuticles, killer pointed tips, and more. Then help clients take their perfect nails to their grave (er, home, we meant home) by offering promotional prices on the finest orange, black, and blood-red nail polishes and other products ideal for the most horrifying time of the year.