From Lane Co Oregon

Revision as of 16:00, 28 August 2008

Betty Snowden Real Estate

125 W Broadway, Eugene, OR 97401-3003, phone: (541) 342-2388

She also has the Betty Snowden show (http://bettytvshow.com/).

Register Guard article:

Glam shop where you can let your hair down

By Jeff Wright

The Register-Guard

Published: Sunday, October 23, 2005

When Cassandra Snowden was growing up, she used to join her mother on trips to Portland to visit beauty salons that catered to the hair care needs of black women and girls.

Little did she know that the final destination of those trips would be downtown Eugene, where Snowden owns and operates Glamour Girls and Guys Hair and Wigs Studio and Supplies.

Her mother, Betty Snowden, is better known these days as "the hat lady" - a successful real estate agent who for the past 12 years also has produced and starred in "Hats Off," a local TV talk show that features local businesses and charity causes.

Fewer people know that Betty Snowden founded Glamour Girls - way back in 1982, in a tiny space on West Seventh Avenue - long before she switched careers and went into real estate. Cassandra Snowden all but grew up in the shop, learning the ins and outs of hair care at an early age. advertisement

She says she remembers well the childhood trips to Portland, and the excitement "of just going to a place that spoke to me and had the products we needed. I was amazed with all the different things you could do with hair with the right products."

Betty, who with husband Tom moved to Eugene from California in the early '70s, also marveled at the breadth of products and knowledgeable salespeople in Portland.

But she also fought the frustration of having to make the trips north in the first place. About the only place women of color could buy suitable beauty products in Eugene back then, she says, was from a limited stock at Fred Meyer.

"We were all saying, `This is ridiculous,' " she recalls.

The former telephone company employee took matters in her own hands by opening Glamour Girls. The original shop, she says, was no more than 300 square feet. She later moved to a larger space on Willamette Street and then, ultimately, to the current location on Broadway.

She briefly opened a second shop on Centennial Boulevard in Springfield, but later closed it as her real estate business began to take off. By 1997, she was ready to hand off the Eugene shop to her only child.

While providing products for African-American women was the incentive, "we didn't specialize as a `black shop,' " Betty says. "You can't be just one thing - you have to diversify and we did from the very beginning. If we were here just for ethnic customers, we'd be out of business."

A few years back, the shop added the words "and Guys" to its name - in recognition of the growing number of males coming through the front door. Some were there to buy products for their wives or girlfriends, but many were there for themselves.

"As time goes on, men are concerned about their appearance, too," says Betty, a gleam in her eye.

Today, Cassandra estimates that roughly 80 percent of her customers - male or female - are white. The store is stocked with hundreds of shampoos, conditioners and similar products - both water-based and oil-based. The latter typically contain glycerine and are recommended for optimal results for many people of color.

And then there are the wigs - more than 400 in all, with price tags ranging from $40 to $200 and up. There's every shade of blond, brunette and red - but who's likely to buy a wig in hot pink? "Everyone," Cassandra says. "All ages, and all times of the year."

Cassandra, whose fashion sense leans toward black outfits and large hoop earrings, says she hardly can imagine a more ideal job for her. As a child, she used to braid her dolls' hair, and sew and design clothes for them.

By the time she was in elementary school, grown-ups "were already commenting that she looked like a model out of Vogue magazine," boasts mother Betty. "They still say that."

The glamour - not for herself but for her customers - is what makes the job so satisfying, Cassandra says. advertisement

"I always feel when someone comes in with a question, I'm helping them and maybe making them feel better if their day is not going well," she says. "What I like is the smiles on their faces when they ask for a certain item and feel like it's going to really help them."

Regular customers aren't the only ones impressed by Cassandra's store. So is the City Club of Eugene and Downtown Eugene Inc., which earlier this year presented Glamour Girls with an executive award for having survived and prospered for so long on the beleaguered downtown mall.

Betty, whose real estate office is next door, says people predicted the shop would be out of business within six months of moving to the mall. But she says she's always rejected that kind of thinking:

"If people have what other people want, they will go and get it," she says.

Cassandra says she has no plans of leaving her current address; after all, the building already is owned outright by her mother. She says she continues to have customers come in who used to visit the shop's two previous locations.

"If you treat people right, they're going to come around," she says. "It's all about customer service. That's what I learned from my parents."