Park Ridge salon is ‘DeVine’ for beauty professionals

From left: Owners Diane Salazar and Michelle McGillivray, with Cathie Schechtal, Tina Anderson and Sharon Mills-Egilske, stand inside DeVine Salon, 147 Vine Ave., in Park Ridge. | Jennifer Johnson~Sun-Times Media

Updated: March 15, 2013 11:19AM

PARK RIDGE — “I walk in looking like Danny DeVito and walk out looking like George Clooney.”

So begins an online review of the apparent magic that hair professionals at Uptown Park Ridge’s DeVine Salon can deliver.

Opened last summer by long-time colleagues Michelle McGillivray of Park Ridge and Diane Salazar of Arlington Heights, DeVine, 147 Vine Ave., is built on decades of salon-cultivated friendships and an unbreakable tie to the city of Park Ridge.

The team of hair stylists McGillivray and Salazar, manicurist Sharon Mills-Egilske, massage therapist, manicurist and esthetician Cathie Schechtal, and salon assistant Tina Anderson met while working at James Anthony Salon in Park Ridge. After the salon closed, the employees went their separate ways, but McGillivray and Salazar began considering the possibility of opening their own salon.

“We just decided to come back into town and try something of our own,” McGillivray said, explaining that the Vine Avenue location was perfect because she “really missed being right in the heart of town.”

Schechtal was the first to join the new team, setting up Cathie’s Escape in the century-old Vine Avenue building where she offers messages, facials, body treatments waxing, manicures and spa pedicures. Mills-Egilske and her daughter, Anderson, soon followed.

“I truly do believe we all complement each other,” Schechtal noted.

The friendship the women share has rubbed off on their clients as well, they say.

“A client came in last week and she said, ‘You know, it’s very friendly here. It’s kind of like a coffee house. Or like Cheers,’” McGillivray recounted, the group sharing a laugh.

For Mills-Egilske, she and her team do more than help women feel beautiful.

“We’re the friends of the customers when they’re having a bad day,” she said. “You hug them, you kiss them, you tell them, ‘It’s going to OK. Sit down and have some coffee.”

The shop also has a part-time barber for men, Brad Piemonte, who is available on Tuesdays and Friday afternoons.

In addition to services offered by Cathie’s Escape, other DeVine services include haircuts for children through adults, color treatments, body waves, perms, bridal and special occasion hair styles, anti-aging facials, exfoliation treatments, body polishing, and several different types of manicures.

It’s the customers, the women say, who keep them wanting to return to work.

“You cultivate long-standing relationships with people,” Salazar said.

“A lot of us have kept clients for as long as we’ve been working,” McGillivray said. “There’s a lot of long-time people who come in here and we’re really happy that they still like coming here.”

Show / Hide Comments