Though she’s never had children of her own, there is something maternal about Beatriz Hernandez. With an open, kind face and dark curly hair piled on top of her head, she always wears a black smock while on the job. Hernandez is in the business if cutting children’s hair.
As the owner and sole stylist at Mouse Mania Children’s Hair Salon in Morgan Hill, Hernandez gets her fare share of shear-shy kids, from the well-behaved princesses to the criers and tantrum throwers.
As anybody who’s ever tried to get a 2-year-old to sit still for more then five minutes could well imagine, for some, just getting their hair cut can be a trying task.
“I get a lot of screamers,” she says with a grin. “I try and make them comfortable. The sound the clippers make; that scares them sometimes. I try and show them the comb and the clippers, let them hold it first so they know it’s not going to hurt them.”
With candy, cartoons and a kid-friendly environment, Hernandez’s salon has been able to stay in business in Morgan Hill for over 11 years. She has gained a word-of-mouth reputation as the “Mouse Lady,” one of the best salons in Morgan Hill to bring kids for a cut. Many of her repeat customers recommend her to other parents with potentially difficult children.
“Parents know their kids, if they are difficult or scared in other places,” said Hernandez. “When they bring them here, they know that it’s kid friendly.”
Though Hernandez doesn’t serve just kids, (a sign in the window proclaims that all ages are welcome,) it’s obvious when walking through the front glass door of Mouse Mania that you have entered kid-zone. In fact, the children’s salon is almost like walking into a children’s Disney fantasy.
Mouse Mania
With a name like “Mouse Mania,” it is no surprise that Mickey Mouse is the all-encompassing theme. And a mania it is. The walls of the salon are covered from floor to ceiling in a dizzying array of Mickey Mouse paraphernalia, from stuffed toys to posters to puppets. The checkerboard linoleum floor also matches the house of mouse theme, along with a playhouse in the corner and a big bowl of lollipops on the front desk.
Hernandez initially got into collecting Mickey and Minnie Mouse toys a few years before she started the salon. When she was trying to decide what would make her salon more kid friendly, she determined that Mickey Mouse would be the perfect theme for her shop.
“Mickey never goes out of style. He’s been around forever. He’s always popular,” Hernandez said.
“It’s less grown-upy,” said regular costumer Jacquie Martinez, while her bushy-haired young son Evan peered threw Mouse Mania’s glass door, waiting for an appointment. “We get to talking about our families. We feel like we know her.”
Mouse Mania even gets older clientele occasionally. Mary Gauger, 25, and her brother Jim, 20, have been coming to Mouse Mania to get their hair cut since they were 14 and 8, respectively.
“It’s the only place I can get Jim to cut his hair,” said Mary. Standing at over six feet tall and built like a linebacker, Jim’s hair is scruffy and hanging well past his ears. He apparently hasn’t visited Mouse Mania in a while. “[Mom] found the place. It was inexpensive and kid-oriented. We’ve known her [Hernandez] for so long. Other places are so abrupt. It’s a really comfortable, easygoing situation.”
Business of Beauty
Hernandez said that it was no surprise to her family when, as a child, she announced that one day she was going to own her own hair salon. She spent most of her playtime combing, curling and styling her baby doll’s hair, and with many of her female family members already in the business of beauty (her sister, aunt and two nieces also run their own hair salons,) it seemed natural that she wanted to join in.
After graduating from the Gavilan College cosmetology program in 1985, Hernandez worked at Supercuts in the Oakridge Mall for 12 years. While there, she found that she enjoyed working with children, something the other stylists often avoided.
After a brief stint working with computers in Milpitas, Hernandez decided that electronics was not for her. “It was boring. You can’t talk or move around,” she said.
In 1997, when a business location opened up at 17760 N. Monterey Road in Morgan Hill, Hernandez jumped at the opportunity to pursue her dream of owning a hair salon.
With the support of her parents, she took a loan out from her father to put money down on the salon. She paid him back in three years, and has stayed self-sufficient every since.
Shear-Shy Kids
But, working primarily with children can be unpredictable, a lesson Hernandez learned early on. She’s still talking about one incident that happened a couple months after Mouse Mania was first opened.
It started out with a grumpy little boy that didn’t want his hair cut. “We had barely even sat him down in the chair and he started crying,” she said. The boy had sat with his face scrunched, pouting silently. His mother decided it would be best to wait for him to calm down and rest before Hernandez started cutting his hair, so they began to chat. After a few minutes though, Hernandez realized that the boy was slumped over and turning blue in his racecar themed salon chair.
“He wasn’t breathing, you know, we started to panic. His mom laid him on the floor, we got an ambulance to come.” By the time paramedics got to Mouse Mania though, he had started breathing regularly again and had awakened. Hernandez later found out the boy would make himself stop breathing and pass out when he was threw tantrums in order to get attention.
Apparently, to some kids, getting their hair trimmed is a blackout-worthy offense.
To the majority of Hernandez’s customers though, the best part of Mouse Mania Children’s Hair Salon comes after the scissors are put away and the hair swept up. No matter what their age, Hernandez offers everyone a free lollipop before they walk out the salon door.
Mouse Mania Cuts
17760 Monterey Rd, #B
Morgan Hill, CA 95037-7300
(408) 782-9262
