By Caitlin Hites
Moscow-Pullman Daily News, Moscow, Idaho
WWR Article Summary (tl;dr) I love salon owner Chelsea Whitney’s reason for starting her business. Whitney says, “I didn’t set out to be a millionaire or anything. I wanted to provide a good environment for women to work where we can support each other and where I can give women an opportunity to make a living wage doing something they love.”
Moscow-Pullman Daily News, Moscow, Idaho
Chelsea Whitney always liked doing hair and was raised with a passion for the environment, but she didn’t grow up with her current lifestyle in mind.
“I went to college to be a nurse,” the 31-year-old Pullman resident said. “I did two years of college, kind of finding out things I didn’t want to do with my life.”
Whitney said she began cosmetology school on a whim and instantly realized her niche.
After completing beauty school, Whitney worked as a stylist in Moscow for six years before opening the business that has now taken over her life: Poppy, An Eco-Friendly Salon and Spa.
“I saw some untapped potential for Pullman, especially with the eco-friendly aspect — that was always my plan,” Whitney said. “I felt like I had grown as much as I could in the position I was currently in, so just decided to give myself a promotion.”
Whitney originally opened Poppy in a small location on East Main Street, but within 14 months the business had grown so much that the salon moved to its current location on North Grand Avenue.
While Whitney said she loves both the styling side and business side of her job equally, the business aspect proved to be more work than she could have ever imagined.
“The business side encompasses a lot more of my time than I anticipated,” she said. “You just eat, sleep and breathe it.”
Being an entrepreneur is a full-time job, but also bleeds into the majority of her time off, as well.
“(I work) all of them, all of the hours in a week,” Whitney said, chuckling.
“When we remodeled the location, we did the entire remodel ourselves,” Whitney said. “My husband and I were both working full time, so we basically lived here.”
Whitney constantly has Poppy in mind, but some of the pressure is taken off with the women who work for her. Each stylist owns her own business and rents space from Whitney.
“My favorite part is the girls I work with,” Whitney said. “I didn’t set out to be a millionaire or anything. I wanted to provide a good environment for women to work where we can support each other and where I can give women an opportunity to make a living wage doing something they love.”
Whitney said she believes each stylist brings something unique to Poppy.
She said she also focuses on what her children will learn from her career. She hopes to instill the “entrepreneur spirit” in her two children, Owen, 7 and Sage, 6.
“They built a lemonade stand and it was adorable, but I was like, ‘OK, now are you going to have employees? … You have to think about the cost of your product,’ ” she said and smiled.
“Especially with my daughter, I hope to raise her to know that she can be anything she wants and not accept 75 cents on the dollar,” Whitney said.
Despite the countless hours, weekends and nights Whitney has spent at Poppy, she said she still loves what she does and recognizes that none of it could be done alone.
“It takes a village, whether it’s my husband doing a plumbing project or one of the girls with better handwriting than me writing the chalkboard sign,” Whitney said. “No one builds a temple on their own.”
Poppy was recently awarded the Entrepreneur of the Palouse Award in the category of “Rising Star” for its commitment to the community and employees, support of local artisans and small business owners and to green business practices. Poppy has been open since 2012.
