Bangles is going greener

Times Reporter

 

Bangles Hair Studio and Spa has put Strathmore on the map, at least when it comes to cosmetology. The studio had taken part in the Pureology Sustainable Salon contest after hearing about it from one of their suppliers and it paid off. They won a $5,000 salon grant from Pureology Canada to help make their studio more eco-friendly. 

“It was a Canada-wide contest and we’re very proud that a town like Strathmore could be recognized across Canada. I think after the first week and a half we kind of knew we had it in the bag. We had gotten so much support,” said Crystal Heron-Stevens, who co-owns Bangles with Stacey Wilson. 

“We’re making as many switches as we can to be green. We carry products from companies that are conscious of the environment.”

The studio won the contest with 1920 votes, and the second runner up trailed behind with 1109 votes. 

The women had to submit three proposals of projects they would like to do to help make the studio greener. The three ideas included reducing their water footprint, reducing paper waste and changing the light fixtures to save energy, and replacing the blow dryers and hood dryers. 

“Those were three ideas we had as far as submitting, obviously with the budget of $5,000 we can’t do them all. Obviously in this industry, water efficiency, reducing the water footprint is major, and of course electricity and heat. Those were things we thought we could make a difference with,” said Heron-Stevens. 

The main thing the salon is working on right now is changing the light fixtures. Some of the reasons for that focus are to help reduce the amount of electricity used, and heat. Just to keep the studio cool enough to be comfortable the air conditioning is running year round.  

In order to try to reduce the paper waste, there is talk about bringing in iPads for the stations. 

“We’re going to get some iPads…so the clients can look at magazines, we can do some networking or marketing on the iPad, just to reduce the paper use,” said Heron-Stevens. 

“Obviously we’d like to be able to have an iPad at every station, we’re not going to be able to initially but, reducing the paper waste in here is going to be really great.”  

Bangles will also be having a contest! Customers can pick up a ballot from the salon to be entered in to win a $150 worth of Pureology products as a way of saying thank you for voting for them 

The contest will run until the end of September. 

Heron-Stevens and Wilson are always looking to find more ways to be eco-friendly and encourage anyone with ideas and tips to contact them.