Written by Emily Petitt Dwyer
With its signature orange and black vines winding across once-white walls, vintage furniture complementing the mix of wood and tile flooring, and plants nestled along the aged brick hearth at its center, Good Sister Studio redefines what a hair studio can be.
The studio offers clients an intimate and educational experience while using clean and sustainable products—products free of harmful chemicals and good for the environment.
In the Northshore-based studio, Meghan Landis, the studio’s co-owner, adjusts her red curly hair with a confident “zhuzh” as she embodies the values she and business partner, Alexa Kuper, have built their studio upon.
Landis’s journey toward clean, sustainable hair care wasn’t just a professional shift, it was deeply personal. Working in traditional salons, she faced a cascade of health-related problems caused by constant exposure to harsh chemicals and artificial fragrances, including contact dermatitis, rashes, asthma-like symptoms, and frequent migraines.
As Landis began researching the ingredients in the products she worked with daily, she uncovered just how harmful they could be—not only for clients but also for stylists.
“Hairstylists actually have a high cancer rate. Statistically, as a profession, we’re up there with industrial carpet dyers and chemical workers because we are constantly exposed to fumes. We are literally breathing in aerosolized lighter fluid. How many times a day do you spray a bottle of hairspray in a traditional salon setting? Quite often. You’re breathing in products constantly, not to mention the chemicals that come off of color,” Landis said.
Her personal health struggles inspired a transformation in her practices. She explains that once the studio came to fruition and she began using all clean products, many of the health issues she encountered began to disappear and her hair’s texture and health drastically improved.
Before opening Good Sister Studio, Landis spent time researching clean products. While it took some trial and error to figure out what worked best, she discovered it wasn’t hard to find good options with the multiple resources available, including other hairstylists’ social media.
Their commitment to clean practices extends to the products they use and recommend to their clients. Products such as Hairstory, Cult + King, and Reverie fill the shelves at each station, showcasing the salon’s dedication to their values.
“We don’t use any synthetic fragrances. We don’t use any aerosols. Our color is one of the cleaner colors on the market, and eventually, we plan to switch to the cleanest color in the world. Our goal is to be the cleanest studio in Chattanooga and also the most sustainable,” Landis said.
Beyond individual health, Landis and Kuper made sustainability a core value of Good Sister Studio. While there are no local means to recycle or reprocess empty containers and leftover products, the studio found a way to dispose of its waste responsibly.
To minimize their environmental impact, Good Sister Studio partnered with Green Circle Salons, a company that processes up to 95 percent of salon waste. This includes used gloves, film, hair caps, foils with bleach and color on them, and unused colors that would otherwise be going down a drain into waterways.
Green Circle also repurposes hair for environmental cleanup or composting material. Oil booms, which are a cheap and effective way to contain and clean oil spills in water, are one of the many ways they use the hair collected.
In just three and a half years of being in business, the salon has been able to recycle almost 400 pounds of waste through Green Circle.
By reducing waste and choosing cleaner, safer products, Good Sister Studio is setting a new standard for what salons can achieve.
“I want to do this job for a long time, and we’ve taken steps to make sure that’s possible—not just for us, but for the generations of stylists and clients to come,” Landis said.
The thoughtful choices and intentional practices that Good Sister Studio uses are redefining what it means to care for hair, health, and the planet.
Emily Petitt Dwyer is a junior at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, majoring in Communication and minoring in Business Administration. Petitt’s goal is to preserve a community’s history and authenticity using her creative skill set. Through classes at UTC and community outreach organizations, she has experience in social media writing and management, graphic design, and photojournalism. Petitt is driven by her commitment to fostering genuine connections with those she meets. To collaborate with Petitt, contact her at xtt836@mocs.utc.edu.