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June 30, 2025
WAUPUN – Taking part in the buzzing chatter while at a hair salon is a common experience for many.
These conservations – which range from discussions about the weather to updates on what’s happening in each other’s lives – often foster hairdresser-client relationships.
Tiffany Arndt – owner of the Glamour Shop in Waupun – said she witnessed many of those relationships form and blossom first-hand when she worked as a part-time receptionist at the salon as a teenager.
“I got to see the connections and relationships stylists had with their clients,” she said. “I enjoyed seeing that engagement and positivity. I feel people today are way more into having a personal relationship with their stylist, no matter how talented they may be or which services they can provide. Clients are just much more interested in bonding with their hairdressers and (maintaining a) strong loyalty to them.”
Arndt said that experience, combined with her passion for the industry, inspired her enrollment in Gill-Tech Academy of Hair Design in Appleton while still a senior in high school.
Now eight decades old, Arndt said many of the aspects that Glamour Shop was founded on in 1945, remain today – which is one of the reasons she believes it has survived and thrived as long as it has.
Eighty years in the making
Originally founded by Leona Raebe in 1945, Arndt said Glamour Shop’s motto has always been “Let’s Talk About Hair.”
In its early years, she said Glamour Shop was located in the Bon Ton building in downtown Waupun, above the Bon Ton bar.
Arndt said Raebe ran it for many years, until her granddaughter – Sue Hoanake – took it over, changing the name to Glamour II.
But after only five years or so, Arndt said Hoanake was ready to sell the salon, though she wanted to remain working there.
So, Tiffany Arndt said two staff members – Val Arndt and Michelle Beer – bought it from her.
Tiffany Arndt said the duo ran it for 20-plus years, during which time she was hired by Val, her then-boyfriend’s mother.
Back then, Tiffany Arndt said she had no idea she would eventually own the place.
But in January 2020, after working at the salon for 15 years, Arndt said she bought the salon from her now-mother-in-law and Beer, changing the name back to Glamour Shop.
“I wanted to go back to the original history of the place and change the name back to what it originally was,” she said. “A lot of people would question that ‘Glamour II’ name and didn’t understand it. I felt there were not a whole lot of reasons for it, and I liked the history of the name Glamour Shop.”
Arndt also said the original name felt more gender-neutral to her.
“The name ‘Glamour II’ always felt a little more feminine to me, whereas ‘Glamour Shop’ brought in a little more of that barbershop/beauty salon feel, where the men would come in a little more, as well,” she said.
Sometime during the last 80 years, Arndt said the salon moved to its current location at 106 Gateway Drive in Waupun, but it has always been family-owned and -operated, and has remained one of the area’s most trusted salons, outlasting others that have come and gone through the years.
Maintaining its long-lasting relationships with clients and the fact that very little has changed over the years, Arndt said, has proven to be a winning combo.
“We’ve kept pace with the times as far as trends go and so on, but we’re still a shop where when you call, you can still talk to a live person – usually the front desk receptionist – and that person books appointments for clients,” she said. “So, we’re old-fashioned or old school that way. I think a lot of people enjoy, respect and appreciate that.”
Though today Glamour Shop uses a computer program to book appointments and send clients automatic text messages reminding them about their appointments – something Arndt said they seem to enjoy – the salon doesn’t offer any online booking.
“We still do all of that ourselves,” she said. “You don’t see much of that anymore. We pretty much run things similar to how they’ve always been. We still have a lot of the clientele who seem to enjoy the old school ways of doing things.”
Arndt said she also enjoys a lot of the old-school ways of doing things, including having a receptionist who handles a variety of things for the stylists, including laundry.
But she said she also recognizes that in time, they may have to move toward using technology for online booking.
“If I had to guess, I’d say that sometime in the next five years, we may be transitioning to online booking, but I don’t think we’re there just yet,” she said.
Comb on in
Clientele at Glamour Shop, Arndt said, runs the gamut of all ages, including parents who bring in their little ones for toddler haircuts to older clients looking for a trim.
Lately, however, she said most clients probably fall between 40 and 70 years old.
Arndt said the salon also boasts a strong male clientele.
“It’s really a very well-rounded salon,” she said.
Always looking to grow the business, Arndt said she recently started a referral program for customers where if they refer a new client, both the existing and new clients get a discount on their next service.
Arndt said Glamour Shop stylists have been perfecting the art of hair care since day one, always staying on top of the latest trends, no matter what they are.
“Anything goes, these days,” she said. “It’s just a matter of adjusting to new ways as they come (become popular). Extensions, coloring and those types of services are always changing.”
Arndt said because trends are ever-changing, she provides in-house continuing education for her stylists at least once a year.
“Our color line educator actually comes in twice a year,” she said. “It’s usually someone from Chicago, but over the years, they have come from all over.”
Because trends often start in bigger cities and on the two coasts, Arndt said getting someone to come in who has their finger on the pulse of the industry is extremely important.
Though most of the stylists at the salon are able to provide pretty much any service available, Arndt said she has four hair extension specialists.
“Mainly because you do need special training for exactly how to put hair extensions in,” she said. “There are four different kinds of hair extensions, and you have to learn how to put them in, and you need to be able to tell your client how to take care of them once they’re in. But for the most part, all my stylists can do whatever services we offer.”
Besides hair extensions, Arndt said services offered at Glamour Shop include haircuts for women, men and kids, facial waxing, perms, coloring, deep conditioning treatments and men’s shaving and other barbering services.
Furthermore, Arndt said she brings in independent nail technicians from HP Nails to offer those services to the salon’s clients.
Arndt said the salon also offers specialty style services for occasions, such as proms, homecomings and weddings, at the salon.
Though many wedding parties book a year in advance, she said she can usually accommodate smaller wedding parties with less notice.
“Being as big as we are, we can usually take some wedding party (reservations) about six months ahead of time or less if it’s a small wedding party,” she said. “It just depends on who I can get to work to cover it.”
To continue to expand the salon’s offerings, Arndt said she hired Saharra Roels, an in-house makeup artist, last month.
“Before that, about half of us did makeup for five years or so, but I started to feel it wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea,” she said. “We also weren’t highly educated in it, so didn’t feel (that we could do the client justice), especially if they wanted something more high-end (like a theatrical make-up job, or something else out of the ordinary).”
Arndt said the salon stopped offering makeup services until Roels’ hire.
“She’s also an esthetician at the spa next door to us,” she said, “so it made sense to bring her in, and that’s all she does for our clients.”
With additional space to work with, Arndt said she would be interested in bringing in someone who does laser hair removal or acupuncture.
Other possible services that could work in the space, she said, include chemical peels, derma-planing, body contouring, eyelash lifting, eyebrow tattooing, hydra-facials, scalp micro-pigmentation and oxygen-infusion therapy.
Though it’s hard to know what folks in Waupun would like, if a strong enough case is made for a particular service, Arndt said she is open-minded enough to consider most anything.
A cut above
Just as the salon prides itself on providing superior customer service, Arndt said she believes in taking good care of her staff, too – which includes 10 commission-based, part- and full-time stylists, including herself.
Paying her staff well, as well as offering them other benefits, she said, is one of the things that helps set her apart.
“The commission-based world is a little bit nicer,” she said. “I have a retirement plan that I pay into for them. They get vacation pay, retail incentives and things like that as little bonuses. If they were renting a chair somewhere, those things wouldn’t usually be (offered). So, I think they do appreciate that.”
Arndt said no one rents a chair at Glamour Shop – “they’re all on staff.”
“They also don’t have to do their own (bookkeeping) work or have the other stressors of (being independent),” she said.
Arndt said she plans to add more stylists to her team – whether that’s recent cosmetology school graduates or seasoned professionals.
“I think we have a really good following here,” she said. “And we don’t have much staff turnover at all. If anyone would leave, it would probably be because they (want to go out on their own).”
The Glamour Shop team, together with their clients, recently celebrated the salon’s 80th anniversary with a week-long celebration – which included a “Blast from the Past” photo spread that customers could add to by bringing in their own photos showing their time in the salon over the years.
Keeping things status quo, while evolving as needed with the industry, Arndt said, “that’s what works best around here.”
“Always has and probably always will – at least for the next 80 years,” she laughed.
For more details and shop hours, head to glamourshopwaupun.com.
