Elizabethtown freshman Amanda Mitchell’s morning is the same everyday. She wakes up, goes to class, then and lies in a tanning bed at the campus salon.

She’s been to N-Style every day since early this semester. She loves being bronze.

According to N-style’s owner, Robin Owen, Mitchell isn’t the only one on campus taking advantage of the tanning beds and hair-cutting services.

Since the first two weeks of this semester, N-Style’s hair business has increased by about 100 percent, while the number of tanning sales is about the same, according to Owen.

“They’re spreading the word,” Owen said. “I think that’s kind of how it’s grown, by word of mouth from students who told other students, and they’ve seen their haircuts and their hair colors.”

Fort Thomas junior Sara Gouedy was impressed with her $25 cut, style and shampoo.

“It’s short. It’s business like, but it’s not so trendy,” said the smiling Gouedy, who is majoring in television news and works at the student news station.

The last place she went for a haircut was Dillard’s Your Salon. “It was expensive,” she said. “One time I paid $40.

“I didn’t go to N-Style because it was cheaper; I went there because it was down the street.”

Well over 90 percent of N-Style’s customers are Western students, but the salon is open to anybody, Owen said.

A cut and style at Dillard’s is priced at $26 and up. The difference in prices depends on who is cutting the hair, said two Dillard’s employees.

“Our stylists are very knowledgeable in color, highlights, red lights and even corrective color,” said Owen, also a Western graduate. “We’ve had several girls who have come in and say, ‘I did something to my hair. Can you fix it?’ And they’re really good at that.”

One such stylist is Rockfield senior Kelly Foust who has been cutting hair for over 10 years.

“Saturday, I took a customer who was too dark, and we had to go lighter,” Foust said. “And you can’t just pour color on there to make that happen.

“We had to bleach it out, and then put color back on top of it to get the right shape. ‘Cause when you bleach, you go through that orange stage, but that’s the way you remove the color.”

A haircut is not the only reason students go to the campus salon.

N-Style, located below Bates-Runner Hall, had 267 tanning sales the first week of the semester, 259 the week before last, and almost 400 the week before spring break, Owen said.

Despite students’ tendencies to leave campus during spring break, Owen said N-Style had 287 customers that week.

“We kind of thought, ‘Well, it may slow down after spring break,'” Owen said, “but there was so many that didn’t get to go somewhere. It was even just as strong after spring break as it was before.”

N-Style was closed last summer because of construction.

At N-Style, a single tanning visit costs $3.75 on weekday afternoons, $3 before noon and $2 on Saturdays. Packages are $18 for five visits, $24 for 10 visits, $36 for 20 visits, $45 for 30 visits and $35 for unlimited visits for a month.

UltimaTan, near Roses, has prices for Western students that are about the same as N-Style, according to owner William Neal. The only differences are 75 cents more for a single visit at N-Style, $1 more for a 10-visit package at UltimaTan and $1 more for a 20-visit package at N-Style.

Reach Ryan McBride at [email protected].