I was on a video call with a spa owner in Florida. She showed me her “towel steamer” — a rice cooker she’d been using for six months. It worked, but it was ugly, small, and honestly a fire hazard. She finally upgraded after a client asked if the towels were “cooked.” Let’s talk about

“The towel warmer broke on a Saturday.” That’s the text I got from a barber in Chicago. He had 20 clients waiting, and zero hot towels. That’s what happens when you buy a $60 unit from a random site. I sell these daily, so let me give you the real breakdown — not the marketing

Last month, a salon owner in Dallas texted me at 11 pm: “My esthetician quit and took her favorite facial machine with her.” That’s the reality of running a spa — your equipment is either an asset or a headache. I’ve spent 12 years selling spa gear to US salons, and I’ve seen people drop

I remember staring at a spreadsheet with tabs for chairs, mirrors, stations, shampoo units, waiting area sofas, lighting, and shelving. I had 40 tabs open and zero clarity. My budget was $15,000, and I was $6,000 over with nothing to show for it. That’s when I realized I needed a package deal, not a piecemeal

I watched a brow artist work for five minutes on a client who was sitting in a standard salon chair. The artist was on her knees, hunched over, asking the client to tilt her chin up repeatedly. It looked exhausting. The client was holding a hand mirror and squinting. That’s not a service—that’s an awkward

My first lash table was a massage table I borrowed from my roommate. It worked, but my back was bent over for hours, and clients had to twist their necks to breathe through the face cradle. After three months, I had a chiropractor bill and two clients who said they’d never come back because they

My third week into opening the shop, I had a client slip her feet into the basin and immediately yank them out. “It’s lukewarm, honey,” she said, giving me that look. The cheap bowl I’d bought off a marketplace site couldn’t hold heat past the first five minutes, and the jet pump sounded like a

A barber in Portland called me up. He wanted a vintage barber chair for his new shop. “I found one on a vintage marketplace for $1,800,” he said. “It’s from the 1950s. It looks amazing.” I asked him if it worked. “Well, the hydraulic pump needs to be rebuilt, and the leather is cracked, but

My feet hurt just thinking about it. A stylist in Chicago told me she stands 9 hours a day, 5 days a week. She wasn’t complaining about the clients. She was complaining about her chair. “The one I have is too low,” she said. “I have to lean over all day. My back is wrecked.”

I was in a new salon in Austin last week. They had a tiny room, maybe 200 square feet. But they wanted to do haircuts, facials, and waxing all in that one room. The owner asked me, “What chair do I buy?” The answer: an all purpose salon chair. These are the chameleons of the