Business Profile: Primadonna Salon, Yorktown
On June 6, Karen de Koff had to pause on occasion during an interview with a local newspaper reporter.
She had a good reason. She and her staff at the Primadonna Salon were busy styling the hair of Somers High School students to prepare them for their prom, which was scheduled a few hours later.
The former Yorktown resident, who resides elsewhere in Westchester County, is busy at her unisex hair design salon throughout the year. After several years of working as a hair stylist at various salons, deKoff opened the Primadonna Salon 13 years ago. “This is where my clients are located,’ she said.
De Koff said she called her salon Primadonna because “every woman’s a Prima donna in the heart of us, in a positive sense. There’s no other way to be taken. I think there’s a little Prima donna in all of us.”
Primadonna Salon offers a wide variety of hair related services “We are color specialists and I consider us to be vision makers. We like to make someone make their look over,” de Koff said.
The salon also specializes in ethnic hair styling. “It’s nice in this area to have people who know how to work on different types of hair,” de Koff said. “We’re a multi-cultural salon.”
Aside from working on hair, the salon also offers other services, including European waxing and tinting and eyelash extensions.
De Koff said she gets much gratification from being a hair stylist. “I like making men and women feel good about themselves,” she said. “I’m a cancer survivor for seven years now. I know how life can beat you up a little bit.”
“It’s nice to have some direction on what to do to make you feel good and young again,” de Koff said.
The salon has a staff of five and specializes in preparing women’s hair for parties and weddings. “I’m so proud to have a new staff that’s working with us,” de Koff said. “We’re training them to move forward.”
De Koff also receives gratification from her charitable efforts. “We are involved with Community Kids and we do help out with any organization that has come to us,” she said. The salon has donated its services to raffle winners and has worked with several groups, including veterans’ organizations, she said.
De Koff has straightforward goals for her business –continue what they have been doing and improve. “I think the goals are just to keep on doing what we’re doing because it has been working.”
Primadonna Salon is located at 251 Underhill Ave. in Yorktown. It is open Tuesdays through Saturdays. For more information, call 914-455-3680, visit http://primadonnasalon.com or send an e-mail to primadonnasalon@aol.com.
