Southwest Las Vegas area mobile beauty salon struggling to stay rolling

The owners imagined a flashy ceiling covered in CDs featuring their clients' signatures for the topside of their mobile beauty salon. Instead, only about a dozen discs speckle the 34-foot-long ceiling of their Girls Night Out bus that carts partygoers to their destination after styling them for the event.

The mobile salon isn't taking off in the direction married couple Markham and Stacie Gordon had hoped.

"It's slow," Stacie, president of the company, said. "It just takes time like any other business."

Not ready to give up on their dream, they both found side jobs to help pay the bills while they get ready to jump-start the beauty bus they founded in the southwest part of town about a year ago. They are teaming up with Canyon Falls Spa & Salon and even have a reality show in the works.

The Gordons might also add more services to their already full list of haircuts and colors, manicures and pedicures, tanning and make up.

What the salon does not feature? A quiet, spa-like atmosphere. Complete with zebra-pattern walls and pink furniture, Girls Night Out is a party bus. And there's a stripper pole.

"This is Vegas, after all," Markham said.

A stereo system and three flat-screen televisions keep the entertainment going, and while alcohol is not sold on the bus, it is welcome.

"It can get pretty wild," Stacie said, noting that the bachelorette parties are especially crazy.

The bus can cart up to 11 guests along with three cosmetologists, or "cosme-tainers," as the Gordons call them. Services can be rendered only once the bus parks and secures the jacks. It can park in neighborhoods, at several casinos and various other hot spots around town.

Stacie thought up the idea of a mobile beauty salon while she was in cosmetology school. After she lost her bar job and her husband's business started to go under, they decided to give it a shot. They sold all their assets and transformed an RV into the beauty salon on wheels.

"Hell, yeah, let's do it," Markham said of his thoughts at the time. "I thought it was an absolutely brilliant idea."

When the couple went to the cosmetology board for licensing, they were the only business of its kind in the salon world. Now, people from around the globe call them for advice in starting their own beauty bus. The couple said they think their own company will start to pick up once they get the word out a little more. Despite the struggles, they don't regret starting it up.

"It's rewarding and exciting creating something from your own ideas," Markham said. "It is a one-of-a-kind, unique beauty experience priced to a point everyone can afford, and it's convenient. It just takes time. It will take off."

Contact Southwest/Spring Valley View reporter Jessica Fryman at jfryman@viewnews.com or 380-4535.