Hairstylist Dusty Schlabach Opens a Zero-product, Curly Cuts-only West Coast Salon

A new California salon looks to bring expert-level curl cuts — sans the usual game of curly hairstylist roulette — to the masses.

Founded by longtime curl specialist Dusty Schlabach, Curly Hair Salon is a 2,000-plus-square-foot space in Fullerton with a staff of seven hairstylists, each trained via a four-week “bootcamp” on the ins and outs of the singular service the salon provides: curly haircuts.

The salon marks a third venture from Schlabach, who in 2012 opened Thairapy Salon in South Pasadena, offering a range of services for curly hair including color and styling. He later launched CurlMaps, an online tool allowing those with curly hair to find specialized hairstylists in their area.

Still, haircuts in particular remain a pain point for many curly-haired consumers.

“There’s just this big disconnect from an accessibility standpoint when it comes to being able to get a good curly haircut — not a cut that you have to grow into, but one that works out of the gate,” said Schlabach, who is known among his 1.1 Instagram followers for his curly-cut transformation videos.

Just as Instagram is a key tool among independent nail technicians to book clientele, the same goes for independent curly hairstylists, though waitlists can often grow long due to heightening demand for specialized services.

“A lot of the time, you either have the stylist that you wish you could get in with but you can’t because they’re not taking new clients, or there’s the salon that’s cool and can get you on the waitlist, but service will cost you hundreds of dollars,” Schlabach said.

At Curly Hair Salon, four kinds of haircuts are available, each priced at $75 and allotted a 45-minute appointment. There’s “Just a Trim” for an allover dusting; the Shape Up, which tends to layers and boosts volume; a bang- and face-framing haircut, and the Big Chop for those looking to go significantly shorter.

Each haircut is performed on dry hair, with clients advised to come in with their hair styled as normal so the service is optimized to their usual wear.

“We want to see what your curl pattern looks like when you style it with what you style it with, so that the cut you get is exactly what you’re going to have when you wash and style it again,” said Schlabach, adding that the salon does not have hair-washing basins, nor does it sell product.

During Curly Hair Salon’s first year, Schlabach aims to service roughly 13,000 clients (Thairapy sees just shy of 20,000 clients in a given year). The Fullerton salon is bootstrapped, and at least two more salons outside of California — Schlabach hinted that Texas is one state he’s been eyeing for a next location — are on the way.

“So many curly girls don’t know what they’re capable of in terms of what they can ask for from a haircut, but it’s been fun to see that conversation get started,” said Schlabach. “Curly Hair Salon is there to make great curly haircuts accessible to everyone, availability-wise and price point-wise.”