Meet Abigail Hemminger of Ohio

Today we’d like to introduce you to Abigail Hemminger.

Hi Abigail, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I opened Salon Front & Center in 2012 in an 800 sq ft second floor studio in downtown Berea,OH. At this time I was a creative director of marketing and education, and an international educator traveling the world teaching advanced education for haircare and hair color companies. While working behind the chair I traveled and taught for about a decade of my career and loved it. I am so passionate about this industry and specifically education.

In 2015 I expanded the salon and took over an additional 2,000 sq ft on the first floor of our building. We continued to grow and were able to expand our reach of servicing people from many surrounding communities while becoming more of a staple in Berea itself. I have been fortunate to have had incredible stylists working here, we have had an incredible team throughout the years. Our moto is to ‘Be A Kind Human’ and I do believe we have and hope that we continue to create a lasting impression on our client’s experience here at Salon Front & Center. We believe in treating people with kindness, creating connection, and serving them with respect and excellence.

A few years into the expansion of the salon, and educating was slowing down, I decided to become a foster mom. So far I have had the absolute honor to have cared for 24+ children and adopted two girls. This past year I had the thrilling blessing of eloping to Greece and marrying the love of my life and this year we plan to adopt our youngest we have been fostering.
We both are entrepreneurs and my husband and I deeply believe that we want to leave a lasting impact on the people we get to serve both in our personal lives but especially in our professional connections as well.

In 2022 Salon Front & Center relocated across the street from our original location to where we are now at 122 Front St, Berea OH. We love the simplicity and chic beautiful space we were able to curate here. We continue to cultivate a culture of treating people well and providing them with beautiful looks that they feel more confident and holding their head a little higher when they leave. We offer all hair services and feel incredibly fortunate to get to continue to serve our community and the greater Cleveland area. Our team now is continuously growing and ambitious to continue making new connections and serving new clients. We are tremendously grateful to our clients loyalty and support over the years.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Entrepreneurship is an adventure not for the faint of heart. I did everything on my own and as difficult as it has been I wouldn’t change that. I have gained so much knowledge, confidence, empowerment, and pride in what I and we as a salon have accomplished. It has created so much more meaningful connections and gratitude for the support of my clients and especially for the incredible professionals that have built their careers here. To be able to provide jobs for people is an honor and its so exciting as well as humbling to watch as their success grows, and their lives transform.
I learned so much in the design and behind the scenes of building out 3 salon spaces, there were many hurdles, but I loved learning through them, or the feeling of satisfaction once we made it through those growing pains.
Anyone in management of people and ownership of a business knows the weight you carry and the learning process that is. I have walked in to my salon entirely flooded, gone through emergent replacements of hot water tanks, leaks in our ceilings, a pandemic, theft and other unforeseen challenges that are just a part of business ownership.
We are stronger for walking through the hurdles we have walked through.
I am still an advocate for advising anyone to ‘take the leap’. Jump in, deep dive, the time will never be right, there’s never enough research, you just have to leap, and learn along the way. I love what I do and it is my biggest dream for anyone else, go do what you love.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
We are a full service hair salon. We all have our various favorite things to do or specialties and those can change over the years being in such a creative field.
My personal specialty is color and curls. I love everything hair, but absolutely am an expert in color with all of the training and teaching on the topic. Having curly hair myself gives me a lot of experience to work with my curly clients and customize a look to their needs.
I have been doing styling and wedding hair for over 20 years, and over the years of doing photoshoots and hairshow hair, my world has collided with my husband’s and I currently travel as a stylist for professional body builders nationally.
I am proud of having a salon that as a whole we have specialized in color, the science behind the formulations, and technique, the creativity and precision of the placement. Our team in incredibly talented.
I hope we are known for our quality of work, and I hope we are remembered for treating people with kindness.
I am proud of the growth I have seen creatively and professionally in every single stylist who works at Salon Front & Center and who has worked with us in the past.

Any big plans?
We just brought in a new brand and switched over all of our color and retail. O&M is an Australian brand that was developed by a female hairdresser, and stands for Original Mineral, their focus is on health, healthy hair and the health of the client as well as the hairdresser. They are a clean line and their slogan is ‘Kind Haircare’.

This was the most recent change and we are very excited about it. And if you caught the common theme or the alignment of views, that messaging to me is not coincidence. As the owner, any change is significantly researched and extremely intentional. I am very excited and open to what the future holds, and however that looks. Salon Front & Center began as a dream and has morphed and evolved in a way I could never have imagined. You never know what may just be right around the corner. We almost always have room to continue to grow our team, and the easiest way to join us is to fill out our inquiry on our website.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.salonfrontcenter.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/abistyling/ and https://www.instagram.com/salonfrontcenter/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SalonFrontandCenter