The Beauty Bubble Salon and Museum
By Melissa Wolf
A fellow writer and I walked into the Beauty Bubble and were warmly greeted by Jeff Hafler, salon owner and collector. Initially, it appeared to be an eclectic store with snazzy jewelry and clothing in the front and an off-limits salon in the back. He quickly dispelled that assumption by telling us this was also a museum dedicated to all things beauty and hair history—accessories, art and accoutrements. In fact, we were welcome to explore every room, every nook and cranny. Delighted, we ventured back to find that each space, including the bathroom, was filled floor-to-ceiling with beauty and hair-related bits and bobs.
Stand out pieces of sculptural hair art were tucked here and there. We soon discovered they were created by Jeff. As we returned to the front of the shop, taking a snap of yet another one of them, he explained he did them for a past art show in collaboration with the gallery next door. Serendipitously, the gallery owner happened to be at the front counter popping in to say hello. These pieces, along with about fifty artifacts from the collection, were even displayed in the Harvey Milk terminal at San Francisco Airport for eight months, which eventually led to a documentary being made about the Beauty Bubble.
He also mentioned that amongst other jewelry, his husband’s creations were carried in the shop—Mikal Winn Jewelry (who also happens to craft pieces for the clothing brand Free People for over 19 years). All of this gave a real sense of the artistic community located within the larger collective of shops and galleries called Art Queen that Beauty Bubble is a part of. I highly recommend stopping by to see all the creativity happening there.
From Mikal’s Instagram page
Melissa: You explained a little to us when you welcomed us to your shop. Could you share again how long you’ve been doing your collecting and owned your salon?
Jeff: Yeah so I started collecting when I was 19 in beauty school in 1991, at thrift stores in Columbus Ohio. This year I’ll be 54, so I’ve been doing hair and collecting for 35 years this year. I have been in the current location for 10 years and the previous location for 22 years. I’m originally from Ohio and I moved to Seattle and Hollywood in the 90s and I was doing hair and collecting all the while. We had a salon in West Hollywood that we had opened in the early 2000s, then bought this house in the high desert. I could have a home salon there and we were going to adopt a baby. So I moved to Twentynine Palms full-time and opened my home salon 2004. Our son was born in 2005 he just turned 21. We then sold that house and moved to the west side of Twentynine Palms and that’s when I moved the salon into the current location.
M: I was curious, what’s one of the weirdest things you’ve seen in your years of collecting?
J: Oh gosh, the perm machine is one of the most unusual things I’ve collected because it looks like a torture device. I have two perm machines; one was donated to me by Veronica Lake’s hairdresser in Hollywood. His name was Earle Adams – he and his wife Bernice were both hairdressers in Hollywood from the 1940s until the 1980s. He gave me my first perm machine, in the late 90s right before I opened my Hollywood store. Another unusual thing I have, I was shopping for vintage antique hair stuff on eBay and came across two of my favorite things. One of them is one of the oldest things in the collection, which is a kerosene-heated curling iron from 1883. It came from a woman in upstate New York who was cleaning out her grandmother‘s attic and I probably paid $20 for it. And there was another thing called the C Bak Viewer, which was a pair of glasses with mirrors on the inside where the lenses would be… You would stand in front of a mirror with the mirrored glasses on and could see the back of your head to style your beehive with both hands. I’ve always thought it was an ingenious invention and have thought about re-introducing it.
Jeff with his vintage perm machine
M: Yes, it could be your niche product where you make your millions.
J: Actually, I’m in the the process of creating a product line, Beauty Bubble products . My best friend’s cousin is a chemist and she’s recently moved to Twentynine Palms and is opening a lab and we’re going to discuss making some products. I have made such a reputation and Beauty Bubble has become such a recognizable name so I thought OK.
People will read or hear about it and send me things in the mail. Tourists will come in and they will go home and send something back. Clients will tip me with Avon bottles.
M: Do you have a holy Grail item that you’ve been looking for but haven’t found yet?
J: Every once in a while, I’ll come across a certain kind of hair Barbie doll – I was looking for the Tressy doll the other day. When I see or think of something my first go to is eBay so I go there and and see what they’re going for, but they’ve definitely gotten more expensive. Also, an interesting fact of the collection is that half of the things in there have been gifted to me. I mean, there are thousands of things in the collection I started – it’s not all my fault that there’s so much, haha – because people send me stuff all the time. People will read or hear about it and send me things in the mail. Tourists will come in and they will go home and send something back. Clients will tip me with Avon bottles.
M: There’s something quite lovely about that. You’ve woven this gifting culture around you quite naturally, so even if you didn’t even intend to, you get to enjoy it!
J: Absolutely and that place makes people feel good. It’s been referred to as the Disneyland of beauty parlors. Because it’s this happy nostalgia, all these things in there to put a smile on your face.
M: Can you give me five adjectives about how your place makes you feel?
J: Ok, proud, happy, let’s see, sometimes tired – there’s a lot of dusting. Someone made the comment to me one day, I was having a down day for some reason and there was a tourist in the shop and they said “Look what you’ve done. This wouldn’t be here if you didn’t keep showing up”. And that’s what you have to do is follow your bliss and keep showing up. Two other adjectives – accomplished, grateful.
I am an ambassador of kindness.
M: I know sometimes it becomes about the place or what you’ve achieved but I’m curious if there’s one thing you’d like people to know about you personally.
J: That I am an ambassador of kindness. Hashtag A-OK.
M: Yes! You were so welcoming when we came in, I felt like it was okay to be there and explore.
J: Yes, it’s so important for me to make people feel comfortable. Sometimes people come in and they go “Oh well this is a salon and they’re doing hair so we’re not supposed to be here”. But I just love sharing it so much, so I’m always super welcoming. And I get to meet people from all over the world in my job now. Being a roadside attraction, so many people are coming to see Joshua Tree park, we get three and a half million visitors a year. And some of them are coming in search of the Beauty Bubble. A lot of hairdressers have started to make pilgrimages to see the “hairstory” museum.
M: That is fabulous to become a Mecca of sorts, an industry icon.
J: I’ve been archived in the library of Congress. If you do a Google search of my name, you’ll see a Library of Congress interview that was done in 2012.
M: Yes and when we were in the shop, you mentioned that you’d had an exhibit at the San Francisco airport which led to a documentary. It seems like your reputation is organically growing.
J: Yes, one thing leads to another. It’s just a constant. The ball keeps rolling and I just keep doing the same thing. Since I was 19 years old and I’m like OK this is happening now and that’s cool. The documentary has led to a play – now there’s a woman who’s written a play. She won a playwright competition for a stage reading in Palm Springs. It’s a comedy play with fictional characters, but it takes place in the Beauty Bubble. There were 700 submissions for the competition and four of them were chosen. They’re each doing a stage reading and the best of the four will get a full production.
M: If she wins, she’ll have a set to reckon with, trying to emulate your place!
J: Yes! I am so happy where I am, the building that I rent, being a lucky tenant of the Art Queen for 10 years, they’re wonderful landlords. But if I were to ever leave, my dream is to build a dome and make it look like a giant hairdryer. Iconic. I wrote Dolly Parton a letter about the idea, but I never heard anything back. After Jeff Bezos gave her all that money a couple years ago to give away, to do philanthropy,. Well I would only need a couple million…I mean who else is gonna build a giant hair museum shaped like a hairdryer than Dolly Parton! I told her we could put it in Dollywood, too.
You can visit Beauty Bubble Salon & Museum, get a haircut or contribute to Jeff’s collection at 61855 29 Palms Hwy, Joshua Tree, CA 92252.
Jeff’s documentary can be found at https.//kinema.com/films/inside-the-beauty-bubble-ndm5aq
IG: @beautybubblesalon
Melissa Wolf has been writing since she was ten years old, mostly poetry, short form projects and journaling. She is working towards a memoir someday.
