Source: Courtesy of Professional Beauty Association
The salon environment can be a place of community and belonging, a space of healing and empowerment. The best salons build a feeling of winning together when times are good and sticking together when times are tough. Recognizing this important quality, the 2021 North American Hairstyling Awards (NAHA) has announced the addition of a new category of Inspiring Salon of the Year, sponsored by SalonCentric, to honor and celebrate salon culture whether it’s a salon’s environment or how the salon connects to the community.
As the professional beauty industry’s most prestigious beauty competition in North America, NAHA—produced annually by the Professional Beauty Association (PBA)—strives to be the most creative outlet for the pro beauty community. “As times are changing, and we find ourselves living in a world where so many new salons are going beyond the design and functions of their salons to focus more on the culture and community of their business. We felt it was time to evolve our salon award for the everchanging salon world,” says Michael Shaun Corby, Chair of the NAHA Committee and Creative Director at Living Proof. “How salons look and function is of course very important, but what they do for their community, how they lead their teams and how they innovate their space to become living and breathing communities for good, are critical today.” The Inspiring Salon of the Year category replaces the previous Salon Design of the Year category to recognize those salons focused on creating both a beautiful design as well as a holistically inspiring environment because while a great design can help contribute to a functional and aesthetically pleasing salon, it’s truly a salon’s culture that makes it the most inspiring. Underscoring this sentiment is Scott Buchanan, owner of Scott J Salons in New York, who says, “Culture defines who you are. We hire based on a stylist’s ability to fit within our culture. I can teach them how to do hair, how to sell retail, etc., but I can’t teach them to truly care and be of service to our guests and the team.”
The 2021 NAHA Awards will take place on March 13, 2021 with the entry period extended to close on November 18, 2020 and the 2021 finalists announced on January 14, 2021. If your salon is changing lives and giving back, enter or nominate your salon for the new Inspiring Salon of the Year category. Submit three images that represent the salon environment/how the salon inspires stylists, clients, the community, include two letters of support, and a brief description (up to 250 words) that depicts how the salon impacts its stylists, clients and/or the community. The entry fee for Inspiring Salon of the Year is waived with support from SalonCentric.
To learn more about the all of the categories, read full rules and regulations or find out event details, visit: probeauty.org/naha
