“A great shave and a haircut magically change the way you feel.”

Holiday Childress would know. After a decade of gaining a reputation as a hair colorist and being a “hairapist” with a mostly female clientele, Holiday has finally realized his dream: to specialize in men’s grooming services. While he is still a unisex hairdresser, Holiday has a mission: to let men know that it’s okay for them to enjoy self-care, too.

“It seems like many guys don’t know how to take care of themselves, or even that it’s okay that they do,” says Holiday. “When you go through the steps and do it right, and treat yourself with these old-fashioned grooming techniques — hot towel shaves, beard grooming with oil — it’s an experience that a lot of men haven’t had but don’t realize how much they’ll love.”

When you enter the Holiday Grooms studio, it is all about your own personal experience. Come in, relax, have a drink, and leave everything behind. Hanging with Holiday is like hanging out with a friend, and many of his clients say that this is the one self-care ritual that they do for themselves regularly.

Not only can you visit him at his Sola Salons Studio in downtown Asheville, Holiday Grooms is also an on-location wedding and special events gentleman groomsmith. With his Craftsman rolling tool cabinet loaded up with fine spirits and shaving products and his Belmont 225 Classic barber chair in tow, Holiday will come to your wedding party or special occasion and transform your space into a speakeasy grooming parlor. Learn more about this special service at holidaygrooms.com.

“I work with my heart and my hands,” says Holiday. “I see this as tailoring, craftsmanship and artistry. And I receive joy out of helping people look and feel like the best version of themselves.”

Holiday began studying hair design and color 2008. His ultimate goal was to open a barber shop, but he decided to attend cosmetology school first. After graduating, he realized that it would take longer to establish a men’s clientele, so he apprenticed with Schwarzkopf and then opened up the Holiday Childress salon at Sola. Holiday was inspired by natural looking color and beautiful hair design, and he works with all hair types and textures – straight, curly, fine, thick.

And then, the game-changer: he secured an iconic barber chair for men, complete with a headrest for shaving. And the rest is history. Nowadays, his product of choice is Crown Shaving Co., which Holiday believes is the best: a world-class, high-performance luxury shaving product line.

Holiday was born in England; his father, an Air Force pilot, and mother moved the family to the states when he was seven. While growing up in Atlanta, Holiday fell in love with music and songwriting. It was on tour with a band when he first visited Asheville; he immediately fell in love and moved here in 1995. Although his career is in hair, he continues to play and write music. Being a songwriter, singer, guitarist and performer, Holiday is used to working with his hands and imagination in music as well as hair.

Holiday was voted #1 hairdresser in Mountain Xpress's "2018 Best of WNC" reader poll, and was voted in the top three for local hair dressers in the Best Of 2016, 2017 and 2019 polls. But the accomplishments he is most proud of are his two sons, Sebastian and Gabriel, and his daughter, Wren, whom he and his wife Lilian welcomed to their family in 2017.