Meet Kate Gnagey | CEO & Esthetician

We had the good fortune of connecting with Kate Gnagey and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Kate, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
Root Salon & Spa was created because I was interested in a holistic approach to beauty. Beauty starts from within. Our routines, the way we speak to ourselves, and the things we consume physically and mentally impact our outer appearance. I wanted to create a space that took all of these ideas into consideration when looking at the services and home care products offered. We also consider these things when growing our team. In our small town in Ohio, team based salon and spas were rare to non-existent. I wanted to create a team that allowed team members to grow as individuals and become top earners in the industry while also finding joy. We work to provide personal development, coaching towards their home and career goals, and offer flexible work hours while receiving a retirement plus match. Our industry is mostly filled with a hustle mentality that sacrifices balance and health. We work to show that isn’t the way to success and this profession is truly sustainable!

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
Root Salon & Spa is a holistic beauty and wellness spa. Our protocols often include internal supplements, red light or sauna therapies, massage, just as much as a topical product or in salon treatment. We offer services that do not create inflammation to the body. We believe your body is intuitively smart and work with it to heal and provide beauty results based on your goals. This can sometimes take a little longer, but we find that our results last and provide other positive impacts! This sometimes means saying no to popular trends or things that would bring “easy money” and that’s okay. When we started in 2014, many people didn’t understand or appreciate this approach. We regularly heard that we were leaving money on the table and that we should just do what people want. However, when you know the long term impacts, it leaves you with no choice but to stand firm and do the right thing. Holistic beauty and wellness is now becoming much more familiar! It is very cool to see this idea being more wildly accepted and even sought out! It is up to us to continue to educate ourselves and our guests on beauty alternatives and why do we or don’t do certain treatments or product ingredients.

We also choose to recycle and reuse as much as we can. We have partnered with sustainable brands like Green Circle Salons, EcoHeads, and Scrummi. This has allowed us to be 95% sustainable and carbon neutral! We try to bring this into our guests homes and offer sustainable products for home use and also gladly recycle any used beauty tools that can’t be recycled locally for our guests. All of this takes more effort from our team daily to save and sort each item properly, but we’re glad to be able to help curb the impact the beauty industry makes on our planet.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Our small town has hidden gems! We would take them to breakfast at Special Grounds. They’re an amazing coffee shop that also provides meaningful vocational experience to individuals with disabilities. The coffee and food is absolutely amazing and the staff is very friendly. Reighard park is across from our salon and is peaceful and also offers disc golf. For kiddos, this park also has Imagination Kingdom which is a beautifully constructed castle playland with separated parts for toddlers and older children. For lunch we’d have to go to The Table on Fulton. They have stone oven pizza and an open kitchen concept. Downtown Wauseon is very cute and theres several boutiques to visit there also!

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
There are so many resources that we have used to grow as a team. However, the greatest blessing has been Pat Lencioni The Table Group. His books have guided us to become better leaders and communicators and The Table Group’s podcasts allow for quick digestible content that we can use for discussions for our team to grow together.

Website: www.relaxwithroot.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/root_salon_spa/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rootskincare