A pink, square brick building sits on the corner of 10th street and 15th avenue in East Moline. The salon hardly resembles the type of character the building portrays from the outside. Walking inside the salon replicates the look and comfort of an indoor patio with flowers, comfortable chairs, windows letting just enough sun light in. There are two stations where hair cuts take place and two seats for hair drying. Inside that building is a business that has kept going strong for 33 years. Divina’s Hair Salon is owned by Divina Vicker, a hard-working and determined woman that has kept her salon going and has been gaining experience in the salon business since 1972, “I worked in salon that was called
Idyan’s Cut and Curl, and I worked there for 2 years before I opened up my salon. I was the first Hispanic in this area to open up a business. I had the pleasure of meeting a lot of good people. I had a lot of good girls that worked for me, they were young girls when they worked for me, and now they have opened up their own salons and went on their own way,” Vicker said.
The hair stylists, including herself, have developed the skills necessary to keep customers happy, and coming back to her salon, “I always loved doing hair. I always love working on my customer’s hair and making them feel good about themselves. If your hair and overall appearance looks great then you’re going to feel awesome. It’s going to make you feel like you can do a lot more. This is a business where we are very close to people [more] than anybody else because we touch their hair, and we touch their soul. People tell us things that they wouldn’t tell somebody else. So we [stylists] become ‘psychologists’ and we become good listeners,” Vicker said. “I think people need to come into a place where they can feel calm and they can feel that they can sit down and be comfortable. I think this place does that.
They take special care of their clients and won’t do any harm to a clients’ hair if a particular hair treatment won’t be right for them. “We try to do quality work not quantity work. If you don’t treat your clients great, they are going to go someplace else, but they come back because of how well you treated them,” Vicker said.
Divina received wise words and support from her mother, “When I started going to beauty school, my mother always told me do something that I’d enjoy. A job in which you can support yourself and your children. I have been very blessed because I have raised two boys, and they had a roof over their heads, clothes on their backs, food in their stomachs; whatever I could give them with my work. I was a single mother for 17 years, but I have been very blessed,” Vicker said.
Divina Vicker has sacrificed to keep her business thriving. She never lost sight the big picture, “When I first when to beauty school it cost me $1,000 and I was working at Sara’s Tacos in Silvis and whatever I would make there I would make my payment to the bank. Thirty-five dollars a month for my loan and my mother helped me take the loan out and I paid it through my work. So I never had time to go out because I was working to pay for my school. My mother always told me look to the future and what I wanted for my future,” Vicker said.
Divina’s Hair Salon offers an array of services including: makeovers, haircutting, perms, colors, and highlighting. Men, women, and children are all welcome. This salon stocks only the top of the line hair products for purchase. Divina’s Hair Salon is located at 944 15th Avenue East Moline Ill. Salon hours are Monday- Tuesday 10-6 p.m., Wednesday-Friday 9:30-6 p.m. and Saturday 9 to 3 p.m. Appointments will have preference, but walk-ins are accepted. In order to make an appointment please call: (309) 755-1917.