A Partner in Business and in Life
At Janet St. Paul Studio for Hair and Beauty, Director of Operations Natasha McMillen helps bring her wife Janet St. Paul's vision to life, elevating every system from education to operations.
by Stacey Soble
Surprising Our SOTY Winner
When we learned that Ginger Bay Salon and Spa had won our SALONS OF THE YEAR competition just days before a video shoot we already planned of the salon, we couldn't resist taking advantage of the opportunity to surprise owner Laura Ortmann with the good news!
May 6, 2012
3 min to read
Each year, our entire SALON TODAY editorial team spends a full day in a darkened conference room evaluating more than a 1,000 submitted images of salon interiors in order to narrow down our SALONS OF THE YEAR applicants to 20 finalists. We then send off the full entries of those finalists to a carefully chosen panel of outside and unbiased architects, salon designers and salon industry experts to choose our grand-prize winner and the cover salon of our June SALONS OF THE YEAR issue.
About a month ago, knowing that Ginger Bay Salon and Spa in Town and Country, Missouri, was on our list of finalists, and that MODERN SALON Executive Editor Alison Shipley would be in St. Louis on business the first weekend in May, we called Ginger Bay’s owner Laura Ortmann to see if we could videotape a tour of her gorgeous new salon. Imagine how excited we were to learn a few days before filming, that Ginger Bay actually won the competition, and we had the opportunity to catch Laura’s reaction on camera. So that’s exactly what we did! In fact, we had just enough time to mock up our June cover before Alison boarded her plane so she had something to present Laura.
Laura and Ginger Bay had some very tough competition this year, and until the last judge’s ballot was in, it could have been any salon’s win. We congratulate all of the 2012 SALONS OF THE YEAR finalists, and we can’t wait to share their design stories and interiors in SALON TODAY and on salontoday.com in the weeks ahead.
2012 SALONS OF THE YEAR
GRAND-PRIZE: Ginger Bay Salon and Spa, Laura A. Ortmann and Jeffrey N Evenson, Town & Country, Missouri
FIRST-RUNNER UP: Shin, Shin An, Santa Monica, California
SECOND-RUNNER UP: Bespoke Hair Artisans, Lisa Williams, Edina, Minnesota
THIRD-RUNNER UP: Roca Salon and Spa, Rhonda and Rod Cavner, Kansas City, Missouri
SALONS OF DISTINCTION:
The Collage Salon, Doug and Lisa Faber, Seattle Washington
Fringe Salon, Lauri Fleischman, Fayetteville, New York
Glo Hair Lounge, John Chirillo and Natalie Wright, Winter Springs, Florida
HAUS Salon, Jessica Reipke and Charlie Brackney, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Headlines the Salon, Gayle Fulbright, Encinitas, California
Jyl Craven Hair Design, Jyl and Jason Craven, Canton, Georgia
Kink Salon, Angelo Venezia, Englewood, New Jersey
LesliJon Salon, Janet West and Joyce Parker, The Villages, Florida
Morrison Hair, James and Rachel Morrison, Laguna Beach, California
New Reflections Spa Salon, Diane Keller, Plymouth, Minnesota
Salon 241, Katie Clifford and Andrea Walller, Northhampton, Massachusetts
Salon Entourage, David Babakhanov, Syosset, New York
Sine Qua Non Salon, West Town, Laura Boton, Chicago, Illinois
Strands Studio for Hair, Edie Ciccia, Alpharetta, Georgia
Trilogy Salon, Darlene Misko and J, Nichole Phillips, Indianapolis, Indiana
Van Michael Salon, Van Council and Michael Council, Atlanta, Georgia
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