Spin Hair Salon

He was born into a family of hairdressers, but Spin Hair Salon’s owner Ian McDonnell says there’s more to the picture than just that. “My family immigrated here from Northern Ireland,” Ian says, “and I was the only one born in Canada in my immediate family. A lot of the men on my mother’s side of the family, they were in the hair industry. My grandfather had a barbershop; my uncles and cousins had various hair salons.” He went through high school thinking he was going to be the one to break away and do something different, but he was eventually drawn into the family industry.

“I tried hair,” Ian says, “and that really checked all the boxes for me as far as what I wanted to do for a career.” His intention was to be an artist, but he found hair encompassed even more creativity and artistry. “I was using all the skills that I developed training to be an artist," he recalls, "in an area where I could be social, and every day’s a little bit different.” He was impressed at how hair practices like colouring and sculpting had their foundations in art, drawing upon principles of form, perspective and dimension, and knew he had settled on a career for life.