History of New Orleans Spa Paris Parker Salon & Spa
Do you ever stop and look up because you feel like something major just happened? Suddenly, we’ve found ourselves in the midst of a major milestone. Our first New Orleans Spa was establish just 25 years ago. We’re always so focused on what’s next—forecasting fashion trends and the hair that pulls them together—but we think this warrants pausing to have a moment. 25 moments, in fact.
The good thing about age is that it comes with reflection. Looking back, we realize with gratitude that what we have is a history together, a path forged by people we’ve loved through those 25 years.
The original Paris Parker Salon— in downtown Hammond, LA. | Source: Neill Corporation
In celebration, we’ve been interviewing 25 of the people who have influenced Paris Parker the most. We’ll be sharing their stories, perspectives and memories here. And as we wrote these stories, we noticed a theme running throughout, and that is the idea of each of us reaching our full potential. But before we can reach that full potential, we have to first believe in ourselves and take care of ourselves. And that’s what a salon’s true purpose is, inspiring self-confidence and self-love in others. This is why we have the reverence we do for the role of the hairdresser, because of the lives they touch instilling foundational feelings of self-love.
While we realize that as our greater purpose now, it’s been a journey to understand that. Most people don’t know the reason we opened a salon. We were first (and still are) an Aveda distributor. We’ve been selling shampoo to salon owners since the 1970s, and while we knew a lot about shampoo back then, we hadn’t yet truly walked in the shoes of the owners. While we listened to their stories, their challenges and their dreams, we knew we needed to immerse ourselves more deeply if we wanted to really help our salon customers.
Paris Parker’s original team of hairdressers. | Source: Neill Corporation
So in 1992, we opened our own salon, Paris Parker, as a “test kitchen” for improving salons nationwide. We’re honored to say we’ve since become one of the most referenced salons in the country, and we constantly share what we learn with the industry we love. (We even host an annual salon conference right here in New Orleans for that very purpose.) Our flagship education program has launched the careers of some of the top stylists in the country, sending teams to fashion week in NYC and beyond. Thanks to them, we’ve won countless “best of” awards in each market we’re in, been named to Salon Today’s 200 list year after year, and helped develop the model “Aveda experience” with Aveda. Nine locations later, we realize we appreciate more than ever just how much we’ve fallen in love with the beauty industry—and our guests—along the way.
Whether you’ve been with us all along or just joined the family, we’re inviting you to join us as we look back over the past 25 years.
We are all full of potential. Love yourself first, and yours will be limitless.
Our very first retail area, in downtown Hammond’s Paris Parker | Source: Neill Corporation
