MANCHESTER, NH – Prior to meeting Tia Elie, hairdresser and owner of Tia’s Salon U, I had no inclination to sparkle.
Now I’m a walking rhinestone.
Elie said the glittering sparkles on the walls and generously sprinkled throughout her salon simply make her happy.
“You can’t be grumpy looking at sparkles,” she said. “It just changes your whole mood when you get your sparkle on.”
While it would be simple to sink into cynicism about someone so perpetually positive and upbeat and “sparkly,” nothing about Tia Elie is disingenuous. With this 47-year-old married mother of four adult children, what you see is what you get.
“She’s more than a hairdresser,” said Jacqui Tippin, one of the more than 200 female clients that Elie services. “You don’t meet Tia. You experience Tia.”
And, for Elie, the experience of being a hairdresser and helping women feel beautiful is both inspiration and spiritual. She described her work as “paychecks of the heart.”
“I believe that every single person is beautiful,” Elie said. “That beauty radiates for me. When I say you’re beautiful, I mean you’re beautiful.”
While her mother worked as a hairdresser and Elie entertained the idea of becoming a hairdresser as an adolescent, she didn’t get into the profession—what she considers her true path—until later in life.
A Deerfield-native, Elie graduated from Pembroke Academy in 1992 then attended New Hampshire College to study accounting for a year before leaving school and taking a full-time job at Hannaford’s, where she worked for 14 years
Then a parent’s worst nightmare changed the course of her life forever.
Elie’s then 2-year-old daughter Tiana—who is now 23 years old and working as a Master Barber in the salon beside her mother—became gravely ill, inexplicably spiking high fevers that would hospitalize the infant for weeks at a time, forcing Elie to call into work.
Eventually, Elie quit her job at Hannaford’s to stay at home with her daughter, which turned out to be revelatory, an epiphany that would lead to sparkles.
“I was on the wrong journey,” she said, adding that the doctors were never able to diagnose Tiana, and as inexplicably as the perplexing fevers appeared, they went away and never returned.
While working as a stay-at-home mother, Elie next started selling skincare products for Mary Kay, where she quickly ascended the company’s ranks and still works as a consultant.
But Elie had aspirations beyond selling skincare products and enrolled in Empire Beauty Salon in Hooksett. After finishing the program, she worked for three years at Rumors Full Services Salon in Manchester, which Elie said she enjoyed, but her ultimate goal was to own her own place.
“I always wanted to be an entrepreneur,” Elie said. “I like working for myself and making my own hours.”
Then, in 2015, Elie opened the doors to Tia’s Salon U, where her slogan is “It’s all about U.”
“When you’re in the chair it’s all about you. That’s what women deserve,” she said. And she hopes her salon can be her customers’ happy place—replete with plenty of sparkles.
For her customers, a visit to the salon involves far more than having their hair done and photographed for Elie’s Instagram page.
“It’s about Tia’s presence,” Tippin said. “It’s infectious.”
And for Elie, it’s about her devotion to an almost divine belief that every woman deserves to feel beautiful. “Once you feel beautiful on the outside, you start to feel it on the inside,” she said.
And, of course, it’s also about the sparkles—literally and metaphorically.
“Once a woman finds her inner-sparkle, she can illuminate the world,” said Elie. “Our inner-sparkle is the only thing that can vanish darkness.”
While I was leaving the salon, after having the pleasure of “experiencing” Tia Elie, she stopped me to point out two pumpkins in the window, one plain and the other glittering with sparkles. “See? You’ll look at the sparkling pumpkin more,” she said.
Examining the two pumpkins, I had to admit that she was right. And as I walked to my car, I noticed she was right about something else. For this 45-year-old curmudgeon reporter, I was suddenly incapable of being grumpy.
The reason, of course, was clear: I had my sparkle on.
[Tia’s Salon U is located at 18 Pearl St. in Manchester. Follow along on Instagram @beautifulhairbytia.]
Nathan Graziano is a local author and columnist for Manchesterinklink.com. Contact him at ngrazio5@yahoo.com
