Seedlings Salon
Serving The Young—And Future—Spa Client

by Matt Morgan

It has been said that children are the future, and two day-spa owners in Doylestown, Pa., are taking that to heart. They have listened to clients of all ages and, armed with the input, responded with a unique haven of indulgence developed especially for children and young adults. Offering a full set of salon and spa treatments and featuring fanciful decor, Seedlings Salon gives tomorrow’s spa clients what they want today.

Karen Lafferty and Geri Rycharski moved to Doylestown Township from Philadelphia five years ago to tap into the growth potential and spa-friendly atmosphere of the suburban bedroom community. The two founded Annodam Day Spa, which offers a wide range of relaxation and beauty treatments designed to help individuals to look and feel their best.

Now, the duo has taken the same approach in opening Seedlings Salon for children and young adults.

Clearly, they believe, the need is there. More and more, children are exposed to the same stress as adults. To the younger generations, Rycharski says, “It’s time to take time for yourself.

As young as you are, everybody has stress. We were told that by kids. A lot of parents sometimes don’t see that—but they do.

They’re stressed to get good grades. They tell us, ‘Hey we get stressed too.’ And that came from a 7-year-old.”

Like any good spa owner, they make it a point to listen to clients—to get constructive advice as much as to be able to serve them during treatments. After some time, Lafferty and Rycharski noticed a trend.

“Over the last five years, clients kept saying day in and day out, ‘There’s no place like this for kids,’ ‘If there was just a place for kids,’” Rycharski says. “When you hear it and you hear it enough, you’re thinking, You’re absolutely right.”

The groundwork was being laid for the first salon/spa of its kind in the area. Annodam had 60 children clients, so Seedlings already had a solid customer base.

Plus, there are 18 employees at Annodam who also would work at Seedlings, and the owners expect to hire five to six more.

Just because clients are young doesn’t mean they get any less of an experience. The team leader has a degree in early education, and one of the stylists runs parties for children’s camps. Another stylist is a children’s diving coach. “All of them seem to have had in their past or still have a huge connection with children,” Lafferty says.

“The bottom line is the clients’ comfort level,” she continues. “It’s just like working with an adult, making sure that they’re comfortable. You have to learn to adjust to your client, regardless if they’re 3 months old or 13 years old.”

When the suite next to Annodam went vacant, the opportunity opened for Lafferty and Rycharski to fulfill their dream.

“We realize our future is really the children, and if we don’t take time and concentrate on our future, we realize that there would really not be very much future for us,” Rycharski adds.

Fast-forward to the grand opening: Aug. 28, 2004. The children are treated like VIPs, arriving at Seedlings in a limousine.

The festivities impressed upon the young clients, “This is your own,” Rycharski says. “This is just for you. This is why we created this. We left no question that night. This was absolutely for the kids.”

Ten children from a focus group of young clients as well as some existing young spa-goers participated in the opening. Everybody joined together to make the Seedlings opening a true community event, Rycharski says, and all of the special effects were in play. “If you walk into Seedlings, you actually go into an otherworldly state of mind,” she says.

Three themes find their place among the four floors of the 4,000-square-foot salon: the rainforest, under the sea, and the beach.

Guests of Seedlings walk first into a rainforest world, complete with simulated electrical torches and bamboo-flanked front desk. The centerpiece is a 10-foot-high, 4-foot-wide tree. In the trunk is a projection-screen television that plays children’s movies. There is a tropical-fish tank that children can view from a stretch of bench around the tree.

Behind the stations in the back is a 15-foot-high-by-24-foot-wide tropical-rainforest mural. “You feel like you’re looking past the station, into the water where the birds are,” Rycharski says.

Of course, no rainforest would be complete without at least the illusion of dampness. A 13-foot faux-rock waterfall runs consistently. Foggers come on about every 25 minutes.

“The coconut-scented fog lingers near the ceiling tiles,” Rycharski explains. “At 5 o’clock, we have a low-lying fog that hovers only about ankle height from the floor.”

Next, clients can head “down to the deck” to the party room. “You actually enter an under-the-sea, water-world fantasia,” Rycharski says.

Special lighting casts a water effect on the walls, and children even can wear 3-D glasses if they want to see fish pop from the 3-D paint. A coral cavern invites children to explore.

The side of a ship leads into another room, the Star Seedlings Studio, where young clients can record their own music.

Moving on to the beach, home of the spa-treatment room, clients can have their nails done at the surfboard table, or pedicures under beach umbrellas. The children will be served fruit drinks complete with fruit slices and paper parasols, Rycharski says.

Because Seedlings is a salon with a spa-like atmosphere, it offers a variety of services found in both types of establishments. To develop a list of youth-oriented services, the owners created a mock menu of services; one evening, they showed it to their focus group.

“We said, ‘Here’s what we’re going to offer,’” Lafferty says.

“‘What does everybody feel about those?’ and also ‘What would you like to have if you could make your own salon?’ We learned a lot from them that night.”

There are five cutting stations, three shampoo stations, one makeup station and three extra stations for services such as color processing. Salon treatments include haircuts, eyelash tinting, makeup, the Japanese straightening system, and coloring— as well as the ultimate in youth expressionism, temporary color.

“Hair color for children today is like what perms were of the ’80s,” Lafferty says. “Today, it is acceptable to have a 10-year-old get highlights. That’s the way of the future.”

Seedlings put together a 10-pack of highlights to give young clients 10 highlights to sample the result before committing to a full treatment.

The spa section is one large room divided by curtains into four smaller areas. “The way they have privacy is we have headphone sets so they can listen to their own music while they’re getting their treatment done,” Lafferty says.

Manicures and pedicures are the most popular services to date.

And when the spa hosts parties, there is a demand for quick-braids, manicures and makeup.

Spa services include massage, seated massage, manicures, pedicures and stone pedicures, teen facials, mini-facials, and mineral clay masks.

One of Seedlings’ signature treatments is the Rain Forest facial (60 minutes, $60), where clients can customize their own mask with lemon-lime, cucumbers, brown sugar and the like. Another standout service is the scented foot soak (15 minutes, $25).

Aveda products are available exclusively in services and for retail.

As far as salons go, Seedlings is an infant itself—but it’s a young business that shows promise.

“It’s been overwhelmingly wonderful,” Rycharski says. “People have been peeking their head in the door asking, ‘Is there anything you need? What can I do?’ Some of the clients will come in and say, ‘Here, I bought these butterflies. They would look great in your spa.’”

For Lafferty and Rycharski, hugs from appreciative clients are as important as dollars on the bottom line.

“As business owners, we can sleep well on our pillows, because we’re not looking to get rich on this idea,” Rycharski says. “We just want to live comfortably, of course, but we want to make sure the children have a place to go.”

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