By Mary Owen
It’s all about the cut!
Hair stylist and salon owner Jahn Hoover is so confident about this secret to good-looking hair, he offers his clients their first haircut free.
“I also give them a 3-minute chair massage,” said Hoover, who owns Hair Konnection in Mill City.
Hoover, 55, didn’t always work as a stylist. His career grew out of his connection with the Pentacle Theatre in Salem. He conducted the theater’s orchestras – once a 23-piece group for Oklahoma! – and then began doing hair and make-up for the actors.
Hoover went to beauty school to further his talents as a make-up artist and hair stylist, and soon his career advanced beyond the theater. In 1989, he opened his own salon, Hairstyles and Attitudes, in downtown Salem. Five years later, he opened Prima, an Aveda-concept salon, in the Reed Opera House.
In 2001, Hoover began a tour of Portland salons that cemented his adeptness at providing clients with high-fashion hair styles, including color and cut. But with gas prices rising and daily commutes of four-plus hours, he decided to once again open his own salon, this time in Mill City where he lives with his wife, Sheila.
Many of his city clients are now willingly commute the distance to Mill City to keep “connected,” he said. Another highlight is that Hoover charges them less for their haircuts because of what he saves by traveling only 3 miles to and from his salon. The lower haircut cost pays for the gas his customers use to get to him, he said.
Hoover said Hair Konnection is becoming increasingly popular with the locals, too.
“It ends up being a community center,” he said. He smiled and added, “I’m changing Mill City one haircut at a time.”
Clients like his sulphate-free, plant-based product line, Pravana, and about 20 come every week for a hair fix, he said.
“My main focus is giving them a haircut that just shakes into place,” Hoover said. “One that frames the face, that’s low-maintenance and long-lasting.”
When not styling hair, Hoover takes his Arabian horse for rides in the Santiam Canyon countryside. He and Sheila are mulling over starting a trail riding business next spring to accommodate other horse lovers who have no place to ride.
Their daughter, Paris, 20, works for Origins at Pioneer Place in Portland, and son, Jason, 25, is a global marketer for Aveda.
“We also have seven cats, six horses, three dogs and two goats,” he added, chuckling.
Hoover invites people to come to his salon for facial waxing, hair coloring, hair styling, make-up, other beauty treatments and innovative products, including “perm-in-a-jar” paste for curls without the chemicals.
“And we do weddings!” he said.
