Not many hair salons have a full liquor license, but Hair Saloon & Café in Scarsdale has never been one to stick with the status quo. The Westchester beauty center serves up cocktails and delicious bites all while visitors wait for hair or spa services. Led by owner and founder Danielle Settembre, the salon specializes in facials, full body wax, threading, lash extensions, spray tanning, hot oil head treatments, and scalp massages. In addition to services, it features an outdoor patio and an airy interior thanks to six-foot stations and windows between chairs.
Here, Settembre shares more about her experience with overcoming challenges and being a young woman entrepreneur.
Growing Roots
Settembre’s hair background traces back to high school, where she attended a BOCES school for hair, then studied business management administration at the College of Westchester. She worked in New York City at luxury hair salons, including the Elizabeth Arden Red Door Spa. She also trained at the L’Oréal Academy in Paris and worked alongside French celebrity stylist Odile Gilbert. On top of that, her experience includes working with well-respected names in fashion for New York City and Paris fashion weeks, during which she mastered precision cutting and color techniques on runway models.
Settembre always envisioned opening up a business of her own and had ties to the restaurant business, as her family previously owned restaurants. Her dream was to own a hair salon with a focus on creating a welcoming space in which visitors could get pampered and relax. While she was working at high-end salons in New York City, she noticed that many customers would be there for multiple hours getting coloring services or a haircut and would order food from nearby eateries during the wait. She combined the concepts and spent the next two years finding what’s now her location in Scarsdale.
Facing and Overcoming Challenges
Settembre signed a lease for Hair Saloon & Café a week before the COVID-19 pandemic. Navigating the challenges inherent to that period was no easy feat, and she worked to balance construction with providing pandemic-safe hair services on the patio. During that time, she leaned into creative opportunities to spread awareness. She has an active presence on Instagram and TikTok, where she promotes virtual business classes.
On top of overseeing the hair salon, she also operates a consulting businesses and runs Danyelli Laurette, her own hair product line. Danyelli Laurette is a luxury, organic haircare line with no plastic packaging that features shampoo, conditioners, and treatment products available for purchase in the salon or online.
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Each element builds upon the brand Settembre continues to grow. As she does so, she’s able to further support the Westchester community as well. She started with four employees and now boasts over 23 staffers in the salon space.
“I feel incredibly grateful and blessed, but that’s why I’m so particular with the women that I have at my hair salon, because we’re not a mean girl salon. We’re very supportive. We share formulas with color. We share clients…and it’s almost like a very sharing salon space that we have major standards,” she explains.
For Settembre’s crew at the salon, there are many training and learning opportunities available. For the assistants, she teaches them how to get them on the floor to build their book of clientele.
Advice for Future Entrepreneurs
Settembre’s advice for future entrepreneurs is to educate yourself on the field that you want to be in and follow through on your idea.
“Once you know exactly what you want to do, you have to execute it. You can’t just continue to think about the things that you want to do. You have to put the action into it. And once you put the action into it, you start to see that there becomes a little path, and the path that you’re on doesn’t always feel like it’s easy, and you might want to give up, but that just means you’re on the right track,” she observes. “Don’t give up on your dreams, and continue to surround yourself with people that are positive and want to see you also succeed.”
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Working hard and hustling has been a constant in Settembre’s life. She has won numerous awards including “40 Under 40″ from the Westchester Business Council, a 914INC. Wunderkinds recognition, and Best of Westchester Awards for categories like “Best Salon.”
“It makes me feel incredibly acknowledged by other peers that are in the same boat,” Settembre notes. “It’s nice to have, when you’re in business, other groups of individuals that are similar to you, because it gets a little lonely when you’re constantly busy and working on things, and it’s nice to have a little social group that has similar values and inspirations.”
Doing what she loves every single day is something that makes Settembre proud, as is employing a talented and welcoming group of women stylists at the salon.
“I’m proud of being a woman entrepreneur. That’s definitely exclamation point, exclamation point, star, star, star,” Settembre enthuses. “I’m inspired by the average person that’s genuinely happy with their life, that pushes and wants to go where they want to be, and [is] able to get somewhere and make someone of themselves. I’m inspired by happy people that didn’t start out with anything, that are something now.”
“What makes me proud is that I’m able to do what I love every single day.”
Looking Forward
This year, Settembre looks forward to further integrating her employees into the salon and giving them more control over their book of business. Franchising is also on the horizon, and she’s actively in search of individuals interested in opening Hair Saloon outposts.
Next Steps
Find Settembre’s virtual classes on her social media, as she continues to teach people in the hair industry about starting their own businesses and being successful in their careers. “Whether it’s yourself as a product or whether you’re teaching something that you know, be able to also do it via computer, because obviously we can’t cut hair through the computer, but you have knowledge [you can share],” Settembre says.
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