On the second day before Christmas
I grew up in Detroit and I know a lot about cars, but there is something that as a woman, I know more about than I would ever care to know, and that is I know hair. Yeah, hair. Hair doesn’t just grow out of your head, you know. Hair can be mainpulated to look like jungle gyms, colored to look like a rainbow and textured to look like as straight as thread. Yeah, I got a real understanding of hair from the time I got my first relexer at 8 years old. Because you can find a hair stylist on every corner, we shopped around for one we liked. Once you found your girl (I had very few guys when I was little, but I have had a few really good ones since then), you followed her whereever she went. LaShawn was at 5 different shops over a 2 year time frame and once she opened her own shop, the quality of her service decreased, so we went to Sheila. Sheila was cool until she got into that abusive relationship and had to suddenly take her son out of town to get away from the dude. Ms…what was her name…oh, Sunshine (they used nicknames at this salon to protect their stylists, I guess) was one of my mom’s favorites because she didn’t have our hair looking like we were older than we were. See it’s hard to find a stylist who is successful, but hasn’t fallen victim to the celebrity/hair show/high fashion form of style which is signature for Detroit. Because every salon was crowded, I used to carry a few books to the salon on Saturday and between hearing about somebody’s club experience the night before or about Diana Ross dissing Detroit when she moved to New York (yeah, she’s born and raised in Detroit, but don’t tell her.), I got a certificate in Black Female Drama that I have used for fiction, screenwriting and poetry all of my life. I figure that my mother had no choice since she had three daughters and didn’t have time to do all of our hair plus her own. Every two weeks, I saddled up my library books and went to some colorful establishments like Accent in the mall where they promise you know more than a 30 minute wait or your hair would be discounted. What they forgot to tell you is that you would sit at the shampoo bowl or under the dryer for 2 or 3 hours, so you never got your discount, but you always waited. Or Vantinus, which was owned by this FINE (superFINE is what I thought when I was growing up) brother Van and he would drive up to his shop in this bright red BMW, dressed from his short wavy processed head to his alligator (or crocodile…this is Detroit now) skinned shoes of any and every color and the sistahs would fall out. He would greet you, give you hug or a kiss on the cheek and then glide his tall, slender tail to the backroom. Not the backroom where the supplies were, but the back, BACK room where he handled his illegal transactions or at least that’s what the police said when they shut down his booming 24-hour hair salon chain. No, not a typo. The real deal. 24-hours. No matter what shift you worked, no matter what time the club opened or closed, you could get your hair fried, dyed and laid to the side compliments of not just Vantinus, but Charlene’s may still be open 24 hours at the downtown location.
So, what does this mean to a young woman growing up in the hair capital of USA? (Atlanta/L.A./D.C…they are the juniors/the grandchildren of the Detroit legacy) It means that you had no excuse for not having your hair done up all of the time and you definitely were a weirdo if you wore your hair in any style that was not relaxed. Yeah, natural hair was not the rave, so when I went natural over 10 years ago and cut all of my hair off, my family didn’t speak to me for almost 2 weeks. My father even asked me if I was trying too hard to fit into my male-dominated career by trying to be more masculine. Yeah, I’ve heard it all, but I stayed true to what I believed was more me. I’m pretty low maintenance at my core and I was disappointed in the racket that we call hair care. At least I felt that way until I was faced with a 12 year old daughter who has a ton of thick, beautiful hair and who has to face the family for the holidays. Find out what I went through in the after Christmas aftermath.
May 12th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
Wow, I was tripping down memory lane and thought I’d search for Vantinus and found your blog. Back when I used to go to Van’s, there was no internet, so now occasionally I will try to look up something from my childhood, hoping to find some info about it.
I remember when Vantinus opened in Pontiac, finally, and we were all so excited – and yes, Van did the same thing there! He would pour his gorgeous, sexy self out of his car and stride through the salon, touching women on their faces, stroking their hair, just making everybody melt! Women who were upset about having to wait so long for their appointments and were ready to walk out, would just settle back down in their chairs with dreamy eyes and get quiet and continue waiting. And Van would go right to the back room – and a stylist would usually leave her station and follow him, causing us to wonder just what was going on back there!
Ahhhh, those were still great memories. I wondered what happened to him. He was too pretty to go to prison!
Thanks for the memories.
November 13th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
As a former employee of Vantinus Hair Salon, I am not going to let you all bash Van nor the salon with these un-truths. Van was the salon owner of several 24 hour salons in Detroit and no, he did not perform illegal transactions in the back room. nor was that the reason the salons closed. Van had alot of ppl working that were not reported as employees on income taxes. See in the Hair business, stylists are either independent contractors or employees of a salon. most ppl who worked for Van, even tho they may had viewed themselves as employees, worked as independent contractors. Van provided some supplies. The stylist did not have 1099′s nor did they receive a tax statement at the end of the year like Charlenes and Katherine’s stylists did and THAT is the reason the salon ceased to exist. Unaccounted for income.
I can say Van was 26 years old at the time with an idea that swept the city and he became successful very fast.
After Van that city has not seen anything like it and stylist have been suffering to make the kind of money we made at
Vantinus. Many have chosen other careers. Did you also know the salon on the eastside called Donovan’s belonged to his brother Anthony? Get the history straight because alot of ppl read these things and you shouldn’t say slanderous things like that about ppl you don’t know. I personally had my ups and downs with Van. Hey, he even fired me once, then took me back. but he was a good person at heart and yes, fine as he wanted to be. For the record, no, he did not goto jail. I don’t want to say where he went to protect pplz privacy that I don’t have the liberty to divulge. Oh! and the red BMW was not Van’s. It belonged to one of his female managers. Van had a Lincoln and a Benz. He would never drive that little BMW.
Signed: a former Vantinus employee.
February 17th, 2009 at 8:14 am
yhea the red bmw was my sister’s she and i where both managers i would drive the car from shop to shop because i was the district manager. van is doing well in another state he is not in jail. the shop closed due to tax issues and just to many salon’s in detroit.
June 5th, 2009 at 5:55 pm
tgaddis is correct. We were all blessed in that time. the people of Detroit was my inspiration and I Loved every minute of it. Thank you hair girl, for remembering a very unique time in Detroit Black history. that time wil surely be missed. God bless. Vantinus Johnson
July 4th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
What’s up Tgaddis! Those were the days. I hear you are doing good as well
August 11th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
Vantinus works in Illinois now with a very successful hair salon with his wife and children. He is doing great for all those concerned about him.
March 11th, 2010 at 10:32 pm
Vantinus the salon and the man played an important role in alot of Detroiters. At the time I was a flyer boy passing out flyers trying to market new salons he was opening and existing ones as well. It was a great time. It showed me that you could be whatever you wanted if you worked hard at it. He had alot to do with the swag I got now. Women adored him and the men just wanted to be like him. I worked for Van for 3 yrs and the back room was his office.Unless you were there it’s unfair to say what some suspected as illegal activity going on. I would go in the back sometimes when Van enters but it was to talk about what area he wanted to target for marketing or he would give us (flyer boys) advice. He was cool like that. To the average customer we were young black boys chilling in the office with this successful black man which looked suspect…but it wasn’t. So, don’t get it twisted about illegal activity. I’ll end this by saying it was the most fun I had growing up in Detroit and working for Mr. Johnson. What’s up Todd and Tina. You both helped groom me into the man I am today. Thanks to my Vantinus family and the stylist who were the coolest…too many to name.