Joey and Roman Salon, Cincinnati

Though they can both claim illustrious careers in the hairstyling industry, Joey and Nikki followed very different paths to get to where they are today. Joey trained with Aveda in 1989 and then took his scissors on the road, snipping strands in salons from Nashville to LA. Nikki, on the other hand, has spent most of her 35-year career honing her management skills as the owner of a successful Cincinnati salon. In 2007, they joined forces to create Joey & Roman Salon—Roman is Nikki’s last name—a Kérastase Paris salon specializing in cuts, color, and keratin hair-smoothing treatments.

The salon is also home to stylists Afton and Stephanie, each of whom has spent at least one year training under Joey, learning to execute the latest styles and refining scissor-hand agility by clipping a blizzard of paper snowflakes. Industrial touches permeate the ultramodern space: stylists store their haircare products and equipment in heavy-duty Craftsman tool cabinets and sheets of corrugated tin line the slate-gray walls.