Health and Economic Uncertainties Can't Falter the Strength of Tiverton Salon Owner

Doreen Enos stood behind a salon chair in North Tiverton last week, tending to a friend's hair while the two shared a laugh. Enos said she is grateful to see her friends at more frequently these days. Some are coming in more often because of the holiday season, but others are finding their way back via word-of-mouth, after hearing that Enos is back to work and feeling much better.

After the market meltdown in 2008, Enos, a hairdresser for over 30 years, had a hiatal hernia. That's a protrusion from the upper part of the stomach into the thorax. She had to have surgery, but that didn’t go right and she wound up with a blood clot in her right lung. Then, she ended up in intensive care for two weeks with a heart condition and a severe pancreatic attack.

Enos went into the hospital at 123 pounds and came out at 86. She returned in August of 2010, and started working in small doses.

Still, the down economy and the timing of being sick was a punishing combination.

“Being out sick, I wasn’t here to make the money to pay all the bills of the salon, so I had to take it out of my savings,” she said. “And what I contribute to my house with my husband, I had to take money out.”

To add insult to her mounting health costs, Enos said she has to pay three separate electric and boiler bills for renting three different spaces at 90 Main Road.

When Congressman David Cicilline and Rep. John Edwards (D-Tiverton, Portsmouth) to engage small business owners on how they’ve been affected by the economy, Enos told her story, saying she had lost about a third of her clientele in 2010 while she was sick.

“This placed used to be packed,” she said. “And this time, with people under so much stress, they should be getting massages, facials and pedicures to relieve that stress.”

Enos opened Alter Ego in 2002. She employs four people—a massage therapist, an esthetician, a stylist and a massage therapist. In the past, Enos said a salon owner would pay their employees' salary and insurance, but it’s gotten to the point where insurance and taxes are so expensive, she can’t afford to do that anymore. Distributors are also charging more for products these days, all while customers aren’t coming in as often. Enos said folks aren’t getting the same services they used to, and many are prolonging the time between haircuts. More and more people are jumping around from salon to salon, barber to barber, while others are coloring and cutting their own, then coming back to the salon to have it fixed.

The business is “making less money than we did 10 years ago,” Enos said, but still, she hasn't raised her prices in 10 years. The shop owner said her clients can’t afford to have that happen, and neither can she. If she did raise prices, she says she’d lose those customers.

 “It’s just not the same because of the economy,” she said. But “I don’t want to lose my clients. They become your friends.”

Enos was back in the hospital five weeks ago with another pancreatic attack, so the struggle — financially and physically — is still real. She says her friends and family are there for her, though, and that she's proud that 2011 was better than 2010.

"Now I'm finally getting to where I can work a long day," she said.

“Sometimes you feel you’re in a hole trying to get back up there. I’m definitely not drowning. I feel fine and I’m happy that a lot of my clients who have become my friends are here.”