Meet Chris Knudsen | Mane Attraction Salon Owner. Stylist. Educator.

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

Hi Chris, how has your background shaped the person you are today?
I actually grew up around the hair industry in Wisconsin and I am a proud third generation hairdresser. Watching my parents Erik and Carol Knudsen, who are internationally recognized hairdressers and entrepreneurs, succeed in the industry was very inspiring to me at a young age. However, deciding to go into the industry myself was intimidating because I had very large shoes to fill. So as a young adult I wanted to keep my distance and set a course of my own. I graduated from the University of San Diego Magna Cum Laude with a Business Degree in Management and Marketing in 2005 and began working for a marketing company. After some soul searching, mentoring and watching my brother, Alex Knudsen, get started in the industry, I decided I couldn’t stay away from my roots. So in 2007 I began cosmetology school.
After graduating from the Aveda Carsten Institute in Tempe, Az in fall 2008 I began working immediately at Mane Attraction Salon as a protégé. I chose Mane Attraction Salon for their well-known Sassoon based training program knowing I wanted to get the best foundation I could. I graduated from their intensive training program lead by owners Kendall and Beate Ong in Fall 2009. Since then, I have traveled to San Diego, Los Angles, Nashville, New York, Chicago, Minneapolis, Columbus, Rome, and New Orleans to take advanced business, cutting and coloring classes. I have also taken countless advanced classes in Phoenix at our salon. After getting on the floor, I quickly became a busy stylist, an in house educator, a spokesperson for the brand doing TV shows to promote the salon and got heavily involved in hiring and managing the staff.

In 2016, my wife Jenny and I, became business partners and co-owners working alongside our business mentors Kendall and Beate. In 2020 we purchased the remaining shares of the company and became sole owners. We couldn’t be more proud to co-own and work in a company that just celebrated its 46th anniversary of being in business. Now as partners we are looking forward and are very excited about what the next 45 years will hold for MAS.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
Mane Attraction Salon has been turning heads since 1977. We have been elevating the hair industry for 46 years in the Phoenix market. It was established by the founders Marino and Dolly with the intent to create a company that would sustain the test of time by providing superior education to its team of professional stylists. The second owners Kendall and Beate purchased the company in 1998 with the same vision. They operated the company with the same focus and dedication to training their team. When I joined the company as a protege in 2008 it had good bones already. I was very green coming out of school and education is what I needed. I knew that in order to build a sky scrapper the foundation had to be deep and wide. Most successful long-term companies invest in their team. Mane Attraction Salon does it as good as anyone. We prioritize education and put our money where our mouth is. Our annual budget for education (teachers’ pay, protege pay, advanced education, professional education, certifications, etc.) tops $250,000. Our ‘purple cow difference’ really is our investment in our team. It is not for everyone, but anyone who joins our company as a protege is hungry for knowledge and humble about where they started. No one has an ego. We are a likeminded group of stylists who value learning. During an interview, the reporter asked Vidal Sassoon a question: “What if you train your team and then they leave you to go somewhere else”. His answer is what drives me still today. He replied, “What if you don’t train them and they stay”. As the owners now, my wife and I, have not let off the throttle. Even during the pandemic when education companies where not sending their trainers into the field to train our industry, we pushed and pushed. Our team and clients look forward to our education trips. Biannually we take our team international and next year (Oct of 2024) we will be back on the road. We are taking the team for a private 7-day trip to Barcelona to learn from some hair cutting, coloring and styling experts from Spain. It is not easy to plan and execute our educational calendar, but we wouldn’t have it any other way. It is simply what has made us who we are.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Arrive Monday – Go check into the Scottsdale Fairmont Princess hotel. Have a low key evening eating at La Hacienda (on premise) and enjoy the amenities.

Tues – check out the desert botanical gardens. Dinner spot: Steak 44

Wed – Visit the MIM museum. Dinner spot: The mission at Scottsdale quarter.

Thurs – Check out Tempe town lake (rent an electric donut boat) Dinner spot: Citizen Public house

Fri – Golf at biltmore resort (Lunch at Frank and Alberts) Dinner spot: F&B

Sat – Visit Sedona (day trip but worth it) Dinner spot: Mariposa

Sun – Enjoy the Fairmont resort on your last day Dinner spot: The American

Monday – Depart

Our town has some amazing sunsets, make sure you are somewhere with a view around sunset.

Some good drink spots:
– The Scott Resort
– The W Scottsdale
– Outrider Rooftop lounge

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
My parents, Erik and Carol Knudsen. Fun fact, I am adopted. I couldn’t be more grateful for my parents. They paved the way for so many hairdressers throughout their business adventures. Over their career, they owned, operated, and sold beauty schools, a distribution company in the midwest, retail stores, and a high end salon. They were also award winning hairdressers themselves. This coupled with having big hearts, always putting their family and their staff first, made them unstoppable in our industry. I didn’t realize it until later in life how much of those qualities and values I absorbed as a kid. Watching them happy and successful was an amazing experience for my impressionable brain. Now looking back, I owe everything to them. I am who I am because of them.

Website: www. maneattractionsalon.com

Instagram: @maneattractionsalonphx

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrismasphx/

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

Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/mane-attraction-salon-phoenix

Image Credits
Yellow Room Photography