IGK Hair is going back west.
The hair care company will debut its third salon in Las Vegas on Dec. 13, occupying 1,800 square feet in the new Fontainebleu mega-resort.
With 10 chairs and between 10 to 15 stylists — a few of whom have been recruited from the brand’s existing New York and Miami salons to start — the salon opening comes nearly four years after IGK shuttered its Beverly Hills location in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“[Vegas] was the best chance for us to get back on the West Coast,” said Leo Izquierdo, who launched IGK’s first salon in 2016 in Miami’s Design District alongside fellow celebrity hairstylists Chase Kusero, Aaron Grenia and Leo’s brother, Franck Izquierdo. The company introduced its product line nearly two years later, most recently foraying into at-home hair color in 2022 and, last month, launching its first one-step bleach-and-color kit for $39.
“There’s a huge opportunity for a major salon group — especially one with a product line — to make a change in Vegas,” said Grenia, noting IGK will be the sole salon within fellow Miami-based Fontainebleu’s Vegas location.
Added Franck: “Las Vegas’ image is changing; it was once for an evening out, a work trip, partying, and not so much people living there. But that’s changing.”
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Las Vegas’ population added 5,500 residents in 2022. Separately, 2021 and 2022 data from the University of Las Vegas Nevada shows a majority of recent Nevada newcomers are Californians — a fact IGK anticipates will allow it to once again service clients of its former Beverly Hills outpost.
IGK’s salon services include haircuts, coloring, hair extension application, hair treatments and makeup services. Women’s and men’s haircuts start at $125 and $100, respectively; costs vary depending on a stylist’s seniority level.
The Las Vegas salon will also serve as a precursor to several expansions to come.
“In 2024, we plan to open another salon in New York and another in Palm Beach, Florida. The goal for 2024 is to have five [salons] on the map,” Franck said.
IGK’s 2020 decision to close its Los Angeles salon was due to increasingly difficult-to-follow COVID-19 restrictions in the region, which inhibited operative capacity, ultimately making service unfeasible for employees and clients alike.
“We did our best to hold [the salon], but our business was mostly on the East Coast between New York and Miami,” said Franck, noting that before its closure, employees from the Los Angeles salon were requesting to relocate to East Coast branches.
While hairstylists going independent or taking house calls in addition to working in-salon has been a growing phenomenon everywhere, it especially picked up in Los Angeles, and according to Kusero has had post-pandemic staying power in the region more than in others.
“The hair salon business in Los Angeles has become very tough — a lot of hairstylists who took their clientele into house calls are still barely in the salon today,” he said.
The pandemic did inadvertently pave the way for IGK’s fledgling at-home hair coloring business, though, which includes permanent hair color kits sold direct-to-consumer and at Ulta Beauty.
“During those first couple of weeks, we were creating our own color kits for clients and sending them all over the country — we quickly decided it was the perfect time to go into development,” said Kusero, adding that now, the kits serve as a customer acquisition tool for a younger, experimental consumer who isn’t necessarily salon-native. “It’s catering to two completely different clients; we wanted to go after the needs of the younger consumer who wants to have that lavender purple toward the bottom of their hair and just have fun with it, without having to come into a salon.”
This kind of agility is in part what drew Fontainebleu to IGK.
“IGK is an innovator in the beauty space; just as we are setting out to redefine luxury experience in Las Vegas, IGK’s cutting-edge approach will elevate and complement our diverse blend of offerings,” said the hotel’s development vice president of corporate retail Brooke Soffer.
