Thirty years behind the chair, and still the first one in on Tuesday.

Jeannie Shew — owner, colorist, stylist

Jeannie has spent more than thirty years in the industry and trained at Matrix, Arrojo and other advanced academies, bringing New York technique home to West Virginia. She specializes in hair color — including the color correction work clients travel for — and in the American Wave, the modern soft-wave service developed by Arrojo that very few Kanawha Valley stylists offer.

Ask her clients and they'll tell you the same things: color that stays true, cuts done exactly as asked, and hair fixed after a bad experience somewhere else.

Melissa Woodruff — master colorist & texture specialist

Melissa grew up in the Upstate of South Carolina and, after college, trained at Strand College of Hair Design in Myrtle Beach. She started as an assistant in a small Aveda-trained salon in the heart of Myrtle Beach, moved to Greenville and became a master colorist in 1999, and in 2016 added sales and education for The Salon Center, a professional distributor across the Southeast — which is why she knows what's in the bottle as well as how to use it.

She is an educator for Keratherapy and certified in several other smoothing systems, in the American Wave, and in many types of perms — there isn't a texture service she can't do. Her specialties are color, gradual gray blending, highlights, smoothing treatments, permanent waves and the American Wave. Her products of choice: Shibui, Leyton House, Gold, Keratherapy, Milkshake, Rebond and Aloxxi.

Request either stylist by name, or let us match you to whoever has the right opening for your service.

Away from the chair

Jeannie's work doesn't stop at the studio door. She volunteers with and supports two Charleston organizations, and if you've met the dogs you can probably guess one of them.

The studio

Jeannie's Hair Care Studio sits at 38 Ohio Avenue on Charleston's West Side — a private, secluded space with free parking right outside, a restroom, and refreshments while you process. It's deliberately calm: no walk-in crowd, no shouting over dryers, just the stylist's full attention. Outside there's a landscaped entrance and a private garden at the back for catching the air on a good day.

You'll likely be met at the walk by one of the dogs. They're all rescues, they're all Jeannie's, and they have firmly appointed themselves to the staff.

We're open Tuesday through Friday, 9 to 6, and we confirm every appointment personally because a color correction and a trim don't take the same amount of time.