In most salons, the POS sits at the front desk, a magnet to stylists dashing to find past formulas, type up new ones, or inform the reception team of color or treatment costs. It can all get a bit congested. But if your various technologies talk to one another, just as they do at Rechelle Rosales’ Alt Salon in sunny Albuquerque, NM, the pressure lifts. Every time one of her stylists logs a formula in the salon’s Vish color management system, it is automatically communicated to her Rosy Salon Software POS. A perfect example of where tech talking to each other streamlines essential procedures. 

“I wasn’t set on being a salon owner, but when the pandemic hit, I became much more intent on having control of where I worked, and I wanted it to be green and superefficient,” explains Rechelle, who bought Alt from a beauty school contact in early 2021. “I didn’t have any business experience, so I’ve been on a steep learning curve, but the integration between my Rosy POS and Vish has helped. I’ve got so much data to monitor the business, plus I don’t have to worry about missed services or over-dispensing. It helps that the team is great, really pro-sustainability and tech-savvy, so they love Vish and Rosy.”

It was that willingness of the team to embrace green initiatives that enabled Rechelle to further explore effective, sustainable measures such as Green Circle Salons for recycling color, foils, and other salon waste, and Vish for color management. Within just a few weeks of introducing Vish, the salon’s color waste dropped by 30% because the team recognized the importance of reweighing as a way to refine their formulas. 

“We introduced Vish in October 2021, and after giving time for it to bed down and become second nature to reweigh, I introduced additional charges. We now have thresholds, and if more color is needed, the cost is added to the bill, plus it captures all those missed services like toners,” says Rechelle. “As the additions are automatically sent to the Vish Front Desk widget, the onus is not on the stylist to remember to tell the front of house; all extra product used or treatments are automatically added to the bill.”

Bringing waste down has a big impact on costs and profit. Figures from the first 30 days after Vish was installed show that not only is waste down by 30% but the value of waste left over after application has also been cut from $1.56 to $0.90, a difference of 42.3%. The value of color costs-per-service is also down from $8.06 to $6.91, a savings of 14.2%, which Rechelle sees reflected in her product costs every month.

“We are very much a color salon, with around 75% of clients having some sort of technical service, so using Vish, which stores the refined formula for the client’s next visit, together with Rosy really helps reduce the salon’s effect on the environment and protects profits. We are no longer rinsing unnecessary color down the basin,” adds Rechelle. “That change is helping make the salon more profitable, allowing us to reinvest in education.”

Other salons are increasingly following Rechelle’s lead, embracing easy sustainable initiatives such as Green Circle Salons and Vish. After all, few salons can afford to waste 30% of their color with no return.