May 8, 2017

Meet Jane Henderson and Katie DeVries of Lavender Park in Lincoln Park

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jane Henderson and Katie DeVries.

Jane and Katie, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
Katie and I met 5 years while working next to each other at another salon. We were renting chairs after leaving our previous salons and we were still frustrated with salon owners that didn’t get what it took to make stylists happy. We both had the same vision of working at a salon that was modern and well maintained. We wanted to create an environment that nurtured professional growth while encouraging a good work/life balance. Working in a chair rental salon was a good step to opening a salon but it still had lots of challenges that we felt we could tackle with creating our own salon. We missed working with a team of stylists that were passionate about doing hair. It’s fun to have a team to bounce ideas off or to show your work off to! It’s amazing to see the creativity of your co-workers which in turn inspires your own work. We believe at Lavender Park if you make your staff happy that customer service falls in place. People can sense when a place has a good vibe and we get compliments on this all the time, which we owe that to our fantastic team! Being business partners has been a great asset for us, what one of us loves doing the other one doesn’t care for it and vice versa. We are both very proud of where we are on our upcoming 3rd anniversary! It seems like yesterday we were dry cleaning brick in an empty space on our days off………

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Hmmm figuring out millennials comes to mind! Overall, it’s been a pretty smooth road but not going to lie there have been a lot of sleepless nights. There have definitely been some growing pains and things we have needed to figure out along the way. Overall we have enjoyed the new challenges of opening Lavender Park. The first year was definitely the longest, eventually we figured out systems, built our team and each month it gets a little easier as we get better at being salon owners. Now we face the challenge that we are outgrowing our space and need to work on our plan for expanding our hours and space.

Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Lavender Park – what should we know?
Lavender Park is a full service hair salon. We focus solely on what we know best and that is HAIR! Our team does everything well but each stylist has their own focus whether it be curls, men’s haircuts, gray coverage or the perfect blonde.

We are most proud of our team of talented stylists that work hard every day to make their clients feel welcome when they walk in the door and beautiful when they leave.

We are proud of the space that we have created and feel that our environment sets us apart from other salons. We want our team to be proud of the space that they work in which provides them with a level of professionalism that is sometimes lost in our industry. If they are proud of their salon they will want to provide a level of service that matches their environment.

Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
We could be cheesy and say our parents, husband and finance. Or we could be snarky and say all of the former bosses who taught us what not to do. But really, it’s our love for the profession! Our passion for the field is what motivated us to build a comfortable salon with a level of professionalism.

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