Making Clients Beautiful, One Hairstyle at a Time

Lucia Severino has been shaping and styling for 26 years. Diana Culhane “When your hair looks good, you feel good,” Lucia Severino said as she put down her scissors and walked away from her salon chair. “I’ve always loved doing hair. When you see the transformation from when someone enters the salon to when they leave, it’s such a good feeling,” she said through her Italian accent.

For the past four years, Severino has manned a chair at Michaelangelo Hair Design in Baldwin Place, Somers, but she’s been dedicated to hairdressing for the past 26 years. She regularly cuts, styles, colors, and performs Keratin treatments; morphing her customers’ hair into whichever fashion they request.

In order to stay current, Severino takes cutting and color classes every couple of months. She also said that when clients bring a photo of the style they want to don, she can figure out how to successfully replicate the ’do.

“I just say ‘yes’ to my clients, I have a lot of patience, and I just smile and do what I have to do,” she said. “You build a relationship with your clients, they become like family. When a customer doesn’t come in for a while, you wonder why and hope that everything is okay with them.”

For Severino, it’s meeting new people and making people happy that makes her love her job. “This doesn’t feel like work; when you enjoy doing what you do, it makes a big difference,” she said.

She recalled a few situations when diva clients gave her a hard time about having to wait because a previous appointment took longer than expected, but she said problems are few and far between. “I don’t let aggressive clients bother me, I have so many good customers that treat me well. I treat them well too,” she laughed.

Severino lived in Italy until she was 12 years old, and regularly visits her family there; for her family in the United States, she is their go-to hair guru and even though she’s off the clock, she said she doesn’t mind. Severino is a mother of four; she has two girls and two boys, her oldest being 22 and her youngest, 16.

Much like Las Vegas, “I hear a lot of stories, lots of gossip, but it all stays here,” she said. “Sometimes I feel like a psychiatrist but I love it. I think people like to talk to me because I just listen and understand.”

Severino works at Michaelangelo’s Hair Design on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday from 9am to 6pm, Friday 1pm to 8pm, and Saturday 9am to 6pm.