How to cut hair is but one of those. Phillips, 709 E. Genesee St., offers courses in cosmetology, nail specialty and waxing, along with imparting some real-world lessons to make the business viable. “The curriculum is updated on a regular basis and we want to prepare students for today’s salon, and that includes whatever trendy haircuts are out there,” says owner Steve Phillips. “They learn the basics and then how to apply those basics to whatever is popular today.”
Interestingly, what is popular today tends to be a reinvention of what was hot decades ago. “We simply reinterpret something from the past,” notes Phillips, who is easing into semi-retirement. “The newest haircut has fundamental elements that are revisited time and again. The pixie haircut, the Liza Minnelli, which was the flapper of the 1920s, all of that sort of circles around. The Jennifer Aniston is—if you remember Hart to Hart and Stefanie Powers—it’s the same cut. If you take Jennifer’s hair and blow dry it and pull it back, that’s Farrah Fawcett.
“It’s interesting when a student will come in and say, look at this haircut; it’s really great. And I’ll say, yes, it’s great, but we did it in the 1970s or the 1980s and again in the 1990s and we blew it back or we blew it forward or we texturized it or we cut it with a razor or cut it with scissors. And we did something different to it but it’s really the same old, same old.”
Phillips Hairstyling Institute is offering several specials as a way to celebrate the last 30 years in business. “When we bought the school,” says Phillips, “as a way to promote the school and get more hands-on training for our students, we offered free haircuts every Wednesday. That was back in 1981—money was terrible, interest rates were 25 percent, 26 percent. Interest rates are not that high now, but times are tough, so we thought how appropriate: a free haircut. Bring us in a clean head of hair, and we’ll cut it for free.”
That special will last all year, Tuesdays through Fridays. Reduced-price specials, Phillips notes, will change monthly, as the students decide. “This helps them learn marketing and promotion,” he says. “They see what works and what doesn’t and look at the costs to the school of the special.” Whatever the special of the month is, it will be offered at half-price.
With an average annual enrollment of 120, Phillips has graduated nearly 3,500 students. If you get your hair cut, your nails done, your brows waxed in Syracuse, it’s safe to say it’s been at the hands of a Phillips graduate. “I’m extremely happy with where we are and where I am today,” he says. “I’ve been very blessed to have great family, great friends and great people who have worked with me to get us where we are. There are no superstars here; everybody had a part in it.”
Beautification Projects
Count among the local salons operated by Phillips alumni Industry in Armory Square, Paparazzi Day Spa in Liverpool and Spa on the River in Baldwinsville. Sam’s Barbershop in East Syracuse boasts 1999 Phillips graduate Sam Failla.
“Mine is a classic barbershop,” Failla says. “For haircuts I use a straight razor, shaving the hairline, sideburns, nape of the neck and above the ears, though I don’t do facial shaves. All of my clientele are men. I had done three years of college and I wasn’t really happy with my degree of study. One of my friends was working as a barber, and he threw out the idea, so I ran it past people that are close to me, and we all thought it might be a good fit.”
While Failla studied at Phillips, it wasn’t barbering because the school doesn’t offer that curriculum; his degree is in cosmetology. “Right now,” Phillips says, “barbering has come back into fashion. There are a lot of young men thinking of getting into it to offer men’s haircutting. And while we don’t offer a barbering course, our curriculum does include everything else, including men’s haircutting.”
Adds Failla, “I never thought I’d be working as a barber. I thought I’d work in a salon. I had a great time at Phillips, Steve helped me out a lot. I worked in a salon for six months, and I discovered that I’m more comfortable working with men than women. I had to get a barber’s apprentice license, then after two years of studying, watching and learning I took the exam. Now I maintain both licenses.”
Judy Santimaw is another Phillips graduate; she owns Spa on the River, a day spa offering a wide range of beauty services. After losing her job as a crew leader in a factory, Santimaw enrolled at Phillips to earn her nail license. “I started with nails and tanning in 1996. I went back to Phillips for my cosmetology training when I knew I would be adding hair,” she says. “I was seeing the dilemma that most of my clients were in, that they had to come here to Baldwinsville for nails, go to North Syracuse for massage, travel to Syracuse for a haircut.” So in 2001 she opened Spa on the River, 2372 W. Genesee Road, Baldwinsville to house every service under one roof.
She chose to attend Phillips because of the school’s reputation. “I looked at others but when you go to take the state boards {exams}, the Phillips students definitely stood out,” she says. “They run a tight ship there. They’re strict with the students, they drill and drill and drill them, teach them to clean, what to use, how to treat customers, and that is really important when you get out in the real world.”
Giovanna McCarthy, who has owned Paparazzi Day Spa Salon, 4971 Bear Road, Liverpool, for 20 years, valued the lessons learned at Phillips as well. “There is a specific quote from Mr. Phillips,” she says, “that made me who I am: ‘When you think you know everything, get out of the industry because you will never grow.’ Education is a big part of what we do here.”
At the same time, McCarthy’s shop keeps reasonable hours, including staying closed on Sundays. “The hours aren’t crazy here,” she says. “That’s another lesson I learned from Mr. Phillips: He made sure we understood that work isn’t everything. He wanted people to have a life.”
Phillips prides himself on his school’s regimen, not hesitating to drop a student who isn’t working out. “The students that come in today are certainly different than the students I enrolled 30 years ago,” he says, cringing that he sounds like his parents. “Their work ethic—a lot of the kids that come in today are spoiled. They want immediate gratification without putting much effort in. Things like getting here on time. When you get a job you’ve got to show up on time. We’ll end up terminating some kids’ enrollment because their attendance is so poor.”
While there are other cosmetology programs in Syracuse, Phillips has maintained its niche. “BOCES has always offered a vocational program,” he says. “We never really looked at them as competition only because they serve a much younger demographic. About two years ago a large chain school came into town and opened up {Continental School of Beauty in Mattydale}, and just like any small, locally owned business, when a big chain comes to town you have to adjust your sales. We’ve done that and we’re faring pretty well with that adjustment.”
Before moving to East Genesee Street 18 years ago, Phillips Hairstyling Institute spent 12 years at the corner of West Onondaga Street and Slocum Avenue. Phillips purchased the school, with his parents as co-signers of the loan, after a semester spent at college and making the dean’s list. “I found college to not be a challenge,” says Phillips, whose life goal had been to teach. “My mom was a hairdresser and we had a salon built on the side of our home, and I watched her have a great time enjoying what she was doing and making more money than my dad did working in a factory and busting his back.
“My mom knew a teacher at a beauty school so I hung out for a day and decided to enroll. It came pretty natural to me, but I still wanted to be a teacher. So I ended up blending the two because I ended up teaching for the people I went to school with. After I graduated, I worked the salon during the day and would teach nights. When the opportunity came for me to buy this school, I took it.”
The industry thrives on innovation, and keeping current about the latest cuts, coloring trends and styling techniques is vital. At the same time, television programs like VH1’s I Love the 80s remind us of how far we’ve come. Looking back, big, poofy hair seems like a low point in hairstyles. Phillips disagrees. “In the ’80s everyone permed their hair, so from a business point of view we made a lot of money. The bigger the hair, the better. If you want to pay me to make your hair as big as possible, well then give me a ladder. The beauty industry started to come of age in the 1980s.”
He tells an amusing anecdote about the hairstylist of the 1980s, Vidal Sassoon. “The ’80s is when Sassoon really took off,” he says. “I studied with him back in the days when he actually taught. And I was there when he invented his high-low cut, the asymmetrical cut, and he did it totally by mistake. After lecturing about how important it is to know about bone structure and facial shape, he starts cutting this women’s hair, and he cuts it very short. When he gets over the other side, he looks and finds out that her ear had been chewed off by a dog when she was a kid and he never even looked so he instantly went into the asymmetrical cut and it was wonderful.”
While a good deal of the Phillips curriculum encourages that sort of creativity, equally important is imparting business skills. “As part of the business unit,” Phillips says, “we address marketing and discuss and compare different types of salons including names. We discuss the type of mental image a name creates, the importance of simple, short, easy-to-remember names that also identify with what you are offering.”
Also important is word-of-mouth advertising. “The system is based on the three things needed for a customer to return again and again,” he adds. “We must make them feel needed, appreciated and important. It is a successful method, and very low cost.”
While mental health services aren’t specifically part of that holy trinity of stylist techniques, they’re almost as vital. “I often say that we should charge a lot more for the psychology that we provide,” Phillips says with a laugh. “What is unique is that a personal relationship is developed with the hairdresser and the client. We stress to each student to be a good listener, try to remove yourself from it as much as possible. We do teach communication skills and interactive personal skills but we don’t get into psychology.”
“I’m fortunate that most of the staff has been with me for years,” he says. “I oversee everything and I still teach my classes. We’re going to ride the wave for however long we can. I have been approached over the years by a couple of bigger schools looking to buy us out. We weren’t ready at that time, and we still aren’t ready. When I finally decide to really retire, I anticipate that the business is at that time financially healthy and marketable. Hopefully I can sell it to a student of mine. I would love nothing more than to sell it to someone who was one of my graduates.”
While an appointment for one of the no- or low-cost services at Phillips isn’t necessary, it is encouraged. Haircuts are given Tuesdays through Fridays, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 5 to 8 p.m. Call 422-9656.
Joy Okoniewski Allen
