Beyond The Blow-Out: How Blow Salon Is Rethinking The Salon Experience
20 years on
By Kiri Johnston | 20th August 2026Nearly 20 years after opening its doors, Brisbane’s Blow Salon is entering its next chapter with a new purpose-built home, an ambitious campaign and a renewed focus on making the salon appointment an occasion in itself.
If anyone understands the power of a good blow-out, it’s the team behind one of Brisbane’s top hair destinations, Blow Salon.
Nearly two decades ago, founder and Creative Director Jonathan set out to create a place where exceptional hair, beauty and hospitality came together to make people feel genuinely looked after. Today, alongside co-owner Steve, who went from apprentice to owner, Blow has built a reputation for not only what happens in the chair, but everything surrounding it. And as the salon approaches its official 20th anniversary next year, that experience is getting bigger.
The luxury of slowing down
Trends, techniques and client expectations may have changed over the past two decades, but Jonathan and Steve say one thing hasn’t: every client should feel welcomed, cared for and leave feeling like the best version of themselves.
At the heart of that is something increasingly hard to come by – uninterrupted time to yourself. “Someone brings you a drink. Someone else washes your hair. Nobody asks you to reply to an email. It is practically medicinal,” they say.
For Jonathan and Steve, a salon appointment shouldn’t become another job on an already packed calendar. “A salon appointment should not feel like another administrative task squeezed between the dentist and collecting dry cleaning. It should be something you look forward to.”
There’s nostalgia in it, too. The salon has always been a meeting place – somewhere to catch up, exchange news, see familiar faces and enjoy the ritual of being looked after. That familiarity has also played a major role in keeping clients coming back. For almost 20 years, the team has made a point of knowing who is walking through the door, what they’re there for and, often, what’s happening in their lives.
“Being remembered is a small thing, technically, but it is one of the things that makes a place feel like yours,” they say. It’s a level of consistency built through hundreds of small moments – a good consultation, remembering a preference, asking how the holiday went or simply knowing when someone would prefer to drink their coffee in peace.
A new home for Blow Salon
That thinking has informed the latest evolution of the business: Blow’s purpose-built salon within the Albion Fine Trades precinct. Designed from the ground up, the 25-station space brings hair, beauty and wellness together under one roof, allowing clients to move between colour appointments, facials, nails, makeup and styling in a single visit.
In practice, that might mean a manicure while your colour develops, hair and makeup in the same place before an event, or a blow-dry after a facial. The services naturally complement one another; Albion simply gave the team the space to bring them together without compromising each individual experience.
“It came down to one question: how could we make the client experience better?” they explain. “The point is not simply to be large. The point is to make a larger number of excellent things possible.”
While co-working salons and solo operators have changed the way the industry works, Jonathan and Steve wanted their new space to make a case for the full salon experience. “We wanted to make a case for the salon in its fullest form: a lively, beautiful place filled with people, conversation, and movement.”
Bringing back ’90s beauty
The new salon also provides the backdrop for Blow’s latest campaign, its most ambitious creative project in years. Produced in collaboration with Brisbane creative agency Mōdiv, the campaign looks to the confidence and glamour of 1990s editorial beauty, with movement, personality and effortless luxury at its centre.
It was a time when hair became an integral part of fashion in its own right. Think Cindy Crawford’s volume, Claudia Schiffer’s blonde and Kate Moss’s deliberately imperfect texture – looks where hair carried attitude, movement and an identity of its own.
“The first supermodels did not simply influence what people wore. They influenced how women wanted to move, look and occupy a room,” Jonathan and Steve say. “There was glamour, but it was rarely too neat. The hair had movement. The makeup had intent.”
It’s a fitting visual for a business that believes beauty is about more than the finished hair. “Hair and beauty may be the stated purpose, but the real luxury is time, attention, and escape.”
Almost 20 years of Blow
Behind the new space and campaign is the team that has grown with the business. “Without our team, we have a very beautiful building containing an impressive number of chairs. We do not have Blow.”
It’s this culture, Jonathan and Steve say, that has allowed Blow to build its reputation on consistency, relationships and the small details that make clients want to return. “The service is polished but personal. The environment is elevated without becoming intimidating,” they say. “Being remembered is a small thing, technically, but it is one of the things that makes a place feel like yours.”
As Blow approaches 20 years, there’s no dramatic reinvention planned. Instead, the next chapter is about building on what people already come for. “The next chapter is not about changing Blow beyond recognition,” they say. “It is about taking everything people already love – the team, the atmosphere, the breadth of services, and the sense of occasion – and refining it further.”
The ambition is for Blow to become somewhere clients think of beyond the moment they simply need their hair done – somewhere woven into the rhythm of Brisbane life, whether that’s before an event, after a difficult week, ahead of a new job, an overseas trip, wedding or birthday.
Because after almost two decades, Blow continues to prove that a great salon appointment isn’t measured solely by the result in the mirror. It’s also about how you feel when you walk back out into the world.
Campaign credits
Creative Direction & Production: Mōdiv Agency Photography: Create Your Platform Film: Nixie Films + Tidal Visuals Styling: Calexico Jewellery: Claude & Me Jewellery Hair Products: Sebastian Professional + Wella Professionals Hair, Makeup & Nails: Blow Salon Brisbane
