New Style Salon, a Local Hijab-Friendly Oasis for Muslim Women

Finding a good hair stylist is hard enough, but finding a salon as a Muslim woman who covers their hair is an even greater challenge, Okemos resident Sawsan Mahmoud told East Lansing Info.

But when she started working at Greater Lansing Islamic School about 15 years ago, Mahmoud quickly learned why so many women in her community recommended New Style Salon in East Lansing, which offers a private curtained off area in the middle of the salon for Muslim women to receive private services.

“The minute we walk in, the way they welcome us, the way they smile. And to be honest, my name, sometimes it’s very hard to pronounce. They pronounce my name perfectly,” Mahmoud said. “We just feel welcome. We feel at home.”

When she first joined the Greater Lansing community, Mahmoud said she found a different salon that offered the rare opportunity for services with a female stylist in a private area in the back of the salon. The area had no mirrors and no sink, but the privacy allowed her to take off her headscarf, without the presence of men, in order to get a salon experience.

Mahmoud said she’s grateful the salon even offered that service, as it can be hard to find hijabi-friendly salons. But going to New Style Salon where the private area for Muslim women isn’t tucked in a closet or basement, but rather is in the center of the salon, was a game changer, and she’s been coming back for more than a decade.

“This is the party area,” owner of New Style Salon David Zumberg said, pulling back the curtains, showing ELi the private area of his salon located in Trowbridge Plaza.

Fitted with two hair stations and a waxing station, with sinks and mirrors, Zumberg said the private area always has a ton of activity.

“Quite often we have three or five or six people in that area, and only one or two of them might be getting their hair done. It gets to be a real family event when they come in,” Zumberg said.

New Style Salon neighbors the Islamic Center of East Lansing, and stylist Fadia Fawaz said for the 15 or so years she’s worked in the salon, the staff has recognized the value in accommodating their Muslim neighbors.

Back when the salon was located within Goodrich’s Shop-Rite grocery store in the same plaza a decade ago, Fawaz said the salon used to schedule only women stylists and clients on Tuesdays so Muslim women could get their hair done.

Zumberg said he was just glad to have the day off back then and would put newspapers over the glass in the salon entrance to protect the privacy of his Muslim clients.

Some of the women who come to New Style Salon have had difficulty in finding a place that would allow them privacy or treat them with respect, Fawaz said, with some clients even wanting to come early to their appointment to look around and make sure there’s not a camera filming them. So when the salon moved from Goodrich’s to its own spot in the complex, New Style held an additional open house just for local Muslim women, so they could see the private area and the rest of the salon.

With the curtains, other clients at the salon can still hear Muslim customers and Muslim customers can hear and experience the energy of the rest of the salon without being isolated, New Style Salon customer Mona Jamal said. The feeling of community with others at the salon doesn’t have to be sacrificed to preserve religious modesty, Jamal said, and it’s nice that the private area has room for other customers and friends and family.

As much as it was frustrating calling salons around the Greater Lansing Area when she joined the community three years ago to see if there was an existing accommodation for hijabis and hear “no” after “no,” Jamal said what was more discouraging was realizing there wasn’t any interest from salons to figure out an accommodation.

“It broke my heart,” Jamal said. 

But Jamal said a group chat with some of the women from the Islamic Center of East Lansing, where members offer recommendations, revealed that New Style Salon had for more than a decade provided the services she was looking for.

“I felt really seen when I found that one salon is actually providing this kind of privacy for hijabis, I felt really appreciated, to be honest,” Jamal said. “The salon owner, he makes sure that he will come and greet you whenever he’s around. He’s very respectful and very friendly to us as Muslim females. 
Having this space is really comfortable for me because otherwise, I wouldn’t be doing my hair anywhere. Honestly, I’d have no other place around me.” 

And beyond offering privacy, the stylists at New Style Salon understand different kinds of hair, textured and curly hair, and would never cut even half an inch more of hair than the customer asked, Jamal said. Mahmoud expressed the same reverence for the stylists at New Style Salon, especially for Fawaz, who Mahmoud said has rescued other people’s hair when other salons have not been able to handle different kinds of hair.

“Once you enter there, honestly, I forget, I feel like I belong. I don’t feel any different than them. We don’t feel any discrimination, not even in a look,” Mahmoud said. “Everybody’s welcome, everybody’s smiling, everybody’s nice.”

Though Fawaz is not Muslim, after emigrating to the U.S. 40 years ago from Lebanon, she said she understands what it’s like to have to navigate a new area and figure out what spaces will be respectful and safe. 

And the Trowbridge area where New Style Salon, the Islamic Center and a host of other businesses and cultural organizations are located, has become a budding area for diversity, Fawaz said.

“When I came to the U.S., I didn’t see really too much Middle Eastern people,” Fawaz said. “Now, more and more, it’s international. That’s what I love about it, there’s people from everywhere. My clients will tell me ‘if you move, let us know.’ 
No, this is my place, this is where I’ll be until I’m retired, this is where I’m staying. It’s the perfect area.”

Ingham County, where East Lansing is located, has more than 9,000 Muslim residents, according to estimates by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies. The Islamic Center of East Lansing serves as the main religious hub for Muslim students attending Michigan State University, as well as the muslim residents of the county.

“I’m honored, really, to do their hair. I’m honored. They want to come to me and see me.
It really, it means a lot to me,” Fawaz said. “I love helping them and making them feel comfortable and safe, and I respect the religion. That’s all I can really do. So they are welcome to the salon.”