Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 26, 1992 TAG: 9201270187
SECTION: NEW RIVER VALLEY ECONOMY PAGE: 28 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: Joe Tennis
DATELINE: FAIRLAWN LENGTH: Medium
A HAIRCUT - AND CONVERSATION
Dolly Parton's sassy character Truvy Jones in the movie "Steel Magnolias" has got nothing on Gwynne Poff.Yeah, Truvy was a blonde-haired hairdresser with a penchant for dishing out advice in a Southern accent.
But so is Poff, owner and operator of the tiny, cozy Silver Scissors hair salon in Pulaski County.
"A lot of hairdressers go in and they won't talk to you or nothing. But you don't have to worry about that here 'cause I never shut up," Poff promised.
A graduate of Pulaski County High School, Poff got her professional hair-styling start at Jackie Webb's Hairstyling in downtown Radford. She opened Silver Scissors 2 1/2 years ago - a decade after she started cutting hair.
That is, cutting hair on people.
"None of my Barbie Dolls had hair. I cut it all off," she said. "In the eighth grade I wrote a report on what I wanted to be. I put a hairdresser and to own my own beauty shop - and here I am."
Now, the Floyd resident prunes or perms hair on 15 customers a day. She made $20,000 last year.
"I love my work, but I like meeting people, too," she said, speaking over Jim Croce's "Don't Mess Around With Jim" on a tiny portable radio in a corner of the plant-adorned salon.
Many times Poff ends up playing the role of psychiatrist for her customers.
"I've always said bartenders and hairdressers need to get more money," she said.
A busy whirl of traffic on Peppers Ferry Road scoots by the poster-covered front door of Silver Scissors all day long. Poff considers her location - inside an old post office the size of a mobile home - part of her success.
She opens the shop at 10 a.m. on weekdays and closes whenever customers stop coming in the door - sometimes eight or 10 hours later.
"Here recently, business has been booming," she said.
Poff has been taking on more and more customers needing haircuts or wanting perms. But, at the same time, shampoo sales have decreased with the recession, she said.
"People are going to cheaper things," she said. "They cut out the luxury items."