Rachel Nicole Hair Brings 'Funky' Styling To Northport

NORTHPORT, NY — Rachel Nicole Hair is bringing a fresh look to Northport.

Rachel Norelli, 27, who views hair as an art form, recently opened shop at 790 Fort Salonga Road. Norelli, who spent a couple of years in Brooklyn, wants to take what she learned in the city and bring it to Long Island.

"I liked doing hair in Brooklyn, because people have a little bit more of a different fashion and trend out there," Norelli told Patch. "I thought that I could bring that to Long Island. Anywhere I worked before that, it was all really cookie-cutter basic hair. Nothing funky. I thought I would come back and bring the funkiness back to Long Island."

Rachel Nicole Hair offers everything from blowouts and touch-ups to highlights and keratin. The shop services both women and men.

Norelli said it's both exciting and a bit nerve-wracking to be a new business owner.

"I’m just excited to do a bunch of new things and really have my visions out there," she said.

Norelli, who majored in art, realized she didn't want to do graphic design. So she found another way to allow her artistic side to flourish.

"My parents were like, ‘You like to do hair, you like to do makeup. Hair is another way of showing you can be artistic doing that.’ So I gave it a shot, and now I’m really into it.”

Norelli found herself as an assistant at a hair salon in Huntington Village. When she passed her cosmetology test, she was given her own chair. Three years later, she moved to Brooklyn to experience the hair culture of New York City.

The city versus Long Island features some cultural differences with how hair is done, according to Norelli. Many places in the city, she said, people go to one stylist for specific things they want to be done with their hair.

"While on Long Island, anyone I know, including myself, we kind of do it all," Norelli said. "We can do color, cuts, blowouts, extensions all in one. I feel like that’s really great because some people don’t want to go to multiple stylists to do certain things. They just want to get it all done at once."

Norelli, when realizing she wanted to start her own business, fell in love with hair as an art form. That passion is what she hopes is reflected in the environment of Rachel Nicole Hair.

"The atmosphere in [Rachel Nicole Hair] is just really different and groovy and funky and bright," Norelli said. "It’s supposed to be really homey. You go in and you can be your natural self and have fun with. Compared to other places, it’s really like, sleek and modern. I’m just really happy that I did something different and a little out of the box."