Cutting Loose Celebrates Main Street Opening

It's a good time for bustin' a move at Cutting Loose salon on Main Street.

The family-owned salon celebrated its grand opening Wednesday after opening up its newest salon at 1950 Main St. four months ago.

Coral Cleese's salons are continuing its success and it's time for her daughter Taelor Scheuer to take the helm of her own salon.

"We have a passion to do the ordinary things extraordinarily well," Scheuer said of Cutting Loose.

Scheuer will be on the management side and is in love with the salon business thanks to her family, but found that she wasn't as handy with the shears, but that doesn't mean she can't have artistic vision and management skills to enable her stylists to be the best.

She helped run the After Hours training salon when she was 20, and by the ripe age of 24, she's in charge of a bustling Main Street location, across from the Regal Hollywood 20 Cinemas.

"I wouldn't change it for the world," she said. "I love being a part of the downtown community"

The shop location itself presents a full circle for the family. In 1970, a salon called New York House operated and it's where Cleese had her first job. Decades later and several salons later, it's now Cutting Loose and it's the first salon that Scheuer will oversee from the start.

There's about 15 salons on Main Street, Scheuer said, but "there's enough heads in Sarasota for everyone to be happy." The stylist community is supportive of each other and the stylists are throwing scissors at the competition.

So what sets Cutting Loose apart?  

It has to be the French Balayage, Scheuer said. It's a method of doing hair where instead of using foils to color hair, the stands of hair are hand placed and lightened, which helps eliminate those roots showing when hair grows out, she explained. The Balayage starts at $95.

That special method had to involve lengthy training for the stylists in Atlanta. The salon aims to be one of the best salons in the nation, and continues to send its stylists to seminars and training and is a part of Intercoiffure—an organization for elite salons, said Niki B—the salon's artistic director.

So what all this fancy French methods and training means that when you get your hair styled and cut, it's going to look natural.

"If they're asking for Jennifer Aniston's hair style, we're going to cut it so it contours and compliments your face," she said.

Niki herself attended a training to do professional photo shoots from a stylist working on the newest Hunger Games movie, to improve the glamour shoots she orchestrates.

It's not just a women's salon. Both Niki and Scheuer are surprised by the number of men walking in during lunchtime for a cut. 

At $36, the guys hesitate at first, but once they're in that chair with a cold beer in hand and a hot towel on their face, the perception changes in a hurry, Scheuer said.

"They realize it's more than a hair cut — it's an experience," Scheuer said.

Cutting Loose's 8429 Honore Ave. location is also hosting its annual Cuts Against Cancer Cut-A-Thon on Sunday.

From 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., all proceeds will benefit the Center for Building hope—a non-profit that provides free psychological and educational services for cancer patients and families.

The haircuts will cost $20 that day; makeup applications and chair massages cost $10 each.