LAKEPORT >> Donna Nozzolillo, owner of the oldest salon in downtown Lakeport, is celebrating her 50th year cutting hair and 28th year as owner of Nozzolillo’s Parlour. She began cutting hair for the people of Lake County when she moved here from the East Bay in 1977, but she was far from a beginner, even back then.
“I’ve been licensed as a professional since 1964,” she said. “But I actually started cutting hair when I was in the eighth grade and by the time I was in the tenth grade I knew that was what I wanted to do.”
Thanks to her supportive clients, Nozzolilli has been able to keep her business up and running through the years. To mark her anniversary, she’s revamping the salon, with a little help from the building’s owners, “When I told [my landlords] that I’m celebrating my 50 years, they had decided that since I have been here for 28 years and my shop needed a facelift, that’s how they wanted to help me celebrate,” she said.
She’s repainting the walls and sprucing up the place, something that hasn’t been done since she moved in. “I’ve painted a couple of times, but never to this extent where I’ve had to move everything out. I decided if I’m going to do it, I need to really fix it up,” she said.
The salon has been in Lakeport under different ownership since the 1960s. She’s using a few of the pieces that have been there since the beginning. “In fact it still has the original shampoo bowl. I just love the way they did these back in the day,” she said. A sink sits just below a counter and mirror, which slide to side until it’s revealed. Customers never have to get up to wash their hair, a far cry from some of the more contemporary salons that have sinks in separate rooms. Nozzolillo’s Parlour also houses an old 1950s hair dryer, colored pink.
She remembers such technology from her early days in the business. Even before finishing her K-12 education, Nozzolillo enrolled in beauty school in Albany, California, squeezing in classes on weekends and during school breaks. By the time she finished high school in 1964 she had managed to earn her professional license.
Nozzolillo’s desire to cut hair stemmed from her own personal struggles with difficult locks. “I think one of the biggest reasons was I had beautiful, long, thick curly hair and I used to get so upset when my mom would take me to the hairdresser and I would come out with these funny haircuts,” she said. “So I think that probably started it.”
She began cutting her own hair, trusting herself more than any salons in town. Pretty soon her friends came to her. “Most of my friends at that time had curly hair so they were the ones that would put their hair on beer cans to make it straighter,” she explained. “I guess it just evolved from there.” To this day, Nozzolillo specializes in wavy and curly hair.
Part of what’s been keeping her in business is her skill with more difficult textures. “Because I really love cutting curly hair and wavy hair, that’s my expertise, my philosophy has always been, even if it’s straight hair, that you cut hair for the natural way it wants to fall,” she explained. Going with the texture, rather than against it, means that her customers walk away with strands that are easy to maintain and always look good.
“I always tell them that I cut hair for the way it naturally wants to fall because then you don’t have to fight it. You don’t fight it trying to make it do something it doesn’t want to do,” Nozzolillo said.
Haircuts can make or break a person, so it could be said that Nozzolillo has a lot of responsibility on her shoulders. “It’s such a personal thing to come in and work on somebody. Hair is your pride and joy. Crowning glory, that’s what it is,” she said. However, at this point in her career she’s not really worried about it. “Maybe because I’ve been doing hair for so many years, there’s only so many ways you can cut a head of hair, you know, short or long,” she said. “So basically, I’m doing the same haircuts today as I was doing 50 years ago It’s just different cutting techniques and styling techniques that makes that haircut look different than it did 50 years ago.”
She refers to herself as an old school stylist. She focuses on cuts rather than color or elaborate work. If she had a motto it might be that one cannot have a good hair style without a great hair cut.
Part of a good chop is knowing what kind of cut works on what type of hair and Nozzolillo uses her expertise to communicate with her clients. A good haircut is also about communication. “I let a customer tell me what they want to achieve with their haircut and then I tell them what is the best way of going about that look and try to give them options,” she said. “And let them be the deciding factor in what they’re gonna look like when they leave.”
The most important part of Nozzolillo’s work rests on making sure her clients are comfortable, more so than asking them to change their signature style. “Some of my customers that I’ve been doing for 40 years have not changed their hair. The only difference is, now I blow dry and curl with a curling iron instead of putting it on rollers,” she said. “Some people don’t want to change and that’s fine. They’re comfortable. That’s the most important thing, is doing something that that person feels comfortable with, that’s easily maintained and that looks good on them. So if that person wants to wear the same hairstyle for 40 years, then I’m gonna go along with them.”
When asked how she’s kept clients coming to her for so many years, Nozzolillo began to tear up. “I’m going on 12 years — this is why I get emotional — as a breast cancer survivor and I had to work through my chemo and radiation, and I was so blessed that my customers, they stayed with me, they worked with me,” she said. “I had to commute every day at lunch time to go to Ukiah for my radiation, so I worked a split shift. So my customers accommodated my hours for me. This is where I’m really blessed. They stuck through that, I call it my year of hell, stuck by me the whole year.”
Her clients proved to be more than just paying customers during that trying time. They were like her support system. “That’s what kept me going through my hell year too, was being able to come to work,” she said. “Because it just gave me something to look forward to. I didn’t have to sit around. I could talk to people and I just still felt like I was living a normal life, just going through a sickness.”
It’s clear that Nozzolillo’s clients are a loyal bunch, with people traveling from out of the area just to get their hair chopped by her. “I’ve been really, really lucky,” she said. One of her clients has been seeing her for 35 years, since before she even opened Nozzolillo’s Parlour. “Most of my clients I’ve grown old with I’ve done all generations because I started doing the mothers and the next thing I’m doing their kids and the grandkids.”
Nozzolillo said that the biggest challenge she faces, more than dealing with an exceedingly wide range of personalities, has been making enough money to stay in business. This is where her extremely loyal customers come in. “I’d like to thank all my customers that have supported me all these years and have kept me in business,” she said. “It’s your customers that keep you open. I appreciate every one of them. I tell them all the time.”
To reinforce the old school theme, Nozzolillo brings in antique items and sets them up around the chair. “I have a nice little collection of antique tools, a hair dryer, curling irons that I have on display in my cabinet there,” she said.
The most important thing Nozzolillo has learned over the years is to be kind, a simple lesson, but one of the most effective ones. “Try to be kind to everyone,” she said. “I guess I got that from my mother. My mother grew up in a neighborhood being Lebanese. She was discriminated against and when she came here to California she taught us kids that there’s no discrimination. You love everybody and you treat everybody the same. So that’s what I’ve tried to do all these years.”
Nozzolillo feels that these words of wisdom have been extremely beneficial from a business standpoint. “I feel like that’s part of why people come back too,” she said. “It’s not just because I can give a good haircut. It’s a friendly, warm atmosphere and I try to be kind to everyone. I think that’s the best advice that I ever got, was from my mom. That you treat everyone the same.”
Jennifer Gruenke can be reached at 900-2019.
