Desperate clients sporting embarrassing regrowth or unfortunate homespun experiments were queuing up at The B Hive in Hillsdale, NJ, when it reopened after the pandemic lockdown of 2020. And like every salon, the team was faced with re-calculating formulas to ensure enough to cope with all that additional length. But the math was easy for the B Hive team because during closure, owners Angela and James Alba had installed the Vish Color Management app and Bluetooth scales. The team returned, able to mix the exact amounts needed, rather than guesstimating and over-dispensing. Their formulas were consistent, but also, their color waste was slashed.
“Vish is a perfect example of saving Green,” says James, co-host of the post-pandemic Facebook community Beauty Business Reset, the global Salon Movement, and is a Davines North American Ambassador. “At first I thought its main benefit would be inventory control, because it monitors use down to the nearest ounce, and its metrics enable us to order only what we need–very useful for budgetary efficiency. But the immediate impact was an end to over-dispensing. As a Green Circle Salon we knew exactly how much waste we produced. Using Vish we were able to cut that by over 30%, saving on waste meant saving on color costs.”
The salon’s mantra has been sustainability since it opened nine years ago. And so saving Green – in the case of Vish creating less contamination while boosting profitability – is central to the couple’s approach to business.
“Something presented as sustainable isn’t always what it seems and it can be costly in terms of the planet and profitability,” says James, who has a management and marketing background, and is a self-confessed technology junkie. “But Vish has the data to back up its promises. We can see on a daily basis how much more profit is generated by our color business.”
James isn’t confident that PPE demands and capacity restrictions will be lifted any time soon and is looking at ways to further protect the salon. The natural next step, made easy by Vish, is to change the charging structure so clients pay for color amounts used rather than averaging the costs over the entire color clientele. The data of how many ounces of color are used is automatically sent to the front desk where it is charged and presented in such a way it is totally transparent to the client.
“We need to find ways to ensure our business is sustainable. Using Vish to automatically calculate and transfer the color costs to the client while, at the same time refining the formula to minimize waste, will help us deliver the best service to our clients and superior education to our team,” says James.
Originally posted on Salon Today.
