REINVENT YOURSELF
At Tootsie’s salon and boutique
If you’re thinking about reinventing yourself, you might want to visit Tootsie’s Hair & Nail Salon in Fort Oglethorpe, then go next door and outfit yourself in upscale Bohemian at Tootsie’s Red Bird Boutique.
Both shops are named for Amy Franklin Gunnoe’s mother, Tootsie Kuritz, who established the hair salon and helps with the businesses.
“I took over the salon around 1994,” says Gunnoe, who is a licensed master cosmetologist, “and we opened the boutique last December.”
Gunnoe finds her unique fashions for her boutique at shows, The Mart in Atlanta, and as far away as
Arizona, Las Vegas and California. “What we have is unlike anything you’ll find in normal stores. We carry all kinds of leggings, long tunic tops, dresses, vests, jewelry, purses. We have clothes suited for everything from going to ball games to a night out on the town.” Gunnoe says Easter styles will be arriving soon.
Tootsie’s Red Bird Boutique also carries a wide variety of sizes, from small to 3X. “We cater to plus-size women,” says Gunnoe, “but we carry regular sizes, too. And we have clothes for all ages, from children up to as old as you get. We have customers in their eighties who love our offbeat styles.”
The name “Tootsie’s Red Bird Boutique” has a sad but reassuring origin. “My father always told my mother and the rest of us that if anything ever happened to him, he’d find a way to let us know he was okay,” says Gunnoe.
Gunnoe’s father, Drew, passed away several years ago. “At his funeral, a red bird kept hovering around the grave site,” she says. “I later read that when a cardinal appears, it’s a visitor from Heaven. Over the years, the cardinals just always seem to be around, and that helps us feel close to my dad.”
The atmosphere in the shops is both professional and relaxed, says Gunnoe. “We lavish our customers with attention and respect. We also have a lot of people who just come to hang out and visit. We laugh and cut up and enjoy each other.”
John Belanger, a master stylist who specializes in clipper fades and used to manage a franchise salon located in Walmart, says he much prefers working at Tootsie’s Salon. “This is definitely not a franchise,” he says. “Tootsie’s is a very personal and friendly place.”
Tootsie’s Hair and Nails is a full-service salon that offers styling, coloring, highlighting, perms, manicures and pedicures, waxing and electrolysis.
The salon and the boutique are located at 1422 Battlefield Parkway in Fort Oglethorpe. They can be reached at 706-861-0287 and through Facebook: www.facebook.com/ Tootsies-Hair-Nails and www.facebook.com/ tootsiesredbirdboutique.