SmartStyle

SmartStyle is a United States hair salon brand associated with Regis Corporation and positioned around convenient, accessible salon services in Walmart retail locations. Its operating model places salons inside or adjacent to Walmart stores, allowing customers to combine hair-care appointments or walk-in services with routine shopping. The format is designed to serve families and value-conscious consumers rather than compete primarily as a premium destination salon. The brand is part of the broader Regis salon portfolio, which has included names such as Supercuts, Cost Cutters, First Choice Haircutters, Holiday Hair, MasterCuts, Regis Salons, and Roosters Men's Grooming Center. Regis built its business through a mixture of company-operated salons, franchised locations, acquisitions, and retail partnerships. SmartStyle became particularly associated with Walmart-based salon operations and represented the company's presence in a large, high-traffic mass-market retail environment. SmartStyle's typical services include haircuts, styling, shampoo services, coloring, chemical treatments, and related beauty services, although the exact menu, pricing, staffing, and availability can vary by location. The brand's placement in Walmart stores gives it a convenience-led proposition: customers can receive routine hair services without making a separate trip to a traditional shopping-center salon. Locations may serve women, men, and children, with a family-oriented service mix. The brand's history is closely connected to Regis's strategic shift toward franchising and portfolio simplification. Regis expanded its presence in mass-market and big-box retail through acquisitions and the development of multiple salon concepts. In 2018, Regis announced the closure of 597 SmartStyle salons as part of a wider effort to address underperforming company-owned locations and improve the economics of its salon network. The closures did not eliminate the SmartStyle name; the brand continued as part of Regis's reduced portfolio and franchise-oriented operating model. Regis subsequently focused its principal brand group around fewer names, identifying SmartStyle alongside Supercuts, Cost Cutters, First Choice Haircutters, and Roosters as a core brand set. The company also transferred many company-owned salons to franchisees, meaning that operational control, service execution, and local marketing may differ among locations. Publicly available information does not establish a separate SmartStyle corporate headquarters, founder, independent listing, or standalone financial reporting. The brand's current identity is therefore best understood as a Regis-operated or Regis-franchised salon concept rather than an independently listed salon company.

SmartStyle is a salon concept developed within the operating portfolio of Regis Corporation, an American hair-salon company. Unlike a standalone salon chain with a separately documented corporate history, SmartStyle is principally known for its placement in Walmart stores and for its role in Regis's mass-market salon strategy. The brand's public identity has consequently been shaped more by its retail location model and parent-company restructuring than by independently reported corporate milestones. Regis traces its origins to a Minneapolis-area beauty salon founded in 1922 by Paul and Florence Kunin. Their son Myron later took control, renamed the business Regis, and moved its salons from department stores into shopping malls. Over subsequent decades, Regis expanded through new concepts and acquisitions, building a large portfolio that served different price points, customer groups, and retail environments. The company acquired or developed brands including Supercuts, Cost Cutters, MasterCuts, Holiday Hair, First Choice Haircutters, and others. This multi-brand structure provided the context in which SmartStyle operated as a Walmart-centered salon format. The SmartStyle model emphasized convenience and broad consumer access. By locating salons within Walmart stores, the concept connected hair services with a high-volume general merchandise environment. The format could attract customers seeking routine haircuts, styling, coloring, and family services while shopping. Its principal competitive distinction was therefore not a luxury salon experience, but accessibility, recognizable retail surroundings, and a service proposition intended for ordinary household needs. Regis's broader expansion during the 1990s and 2000s increased its exposure to shopping malls, strip centers, department-store settings, and other retail channels. The company accumulated thousands of salons through acquisitions and franchise relationships, but later faced declining sales and pressure to improve the productivity of its large company-owned network. Those pressures affected the management of individual brands, including SmartStyle. In 2018, Regis announced the closure of 597 SmartStyle salons. The move formed part of a wider effort to close underperforming locations and reorganize the company's salon estate. The announcement was significant for the brand because it reduced its physical footprint, but it did not represent the end of SmartStyle as a trade name. Regis continued to include SmartStyle in its principal brand portfolio. In 2019, Regis said it intended to simplify a portfolio that had included roughly 50 brand names, concentrating on five principal concepts: Supercuts, SmartStyle, Cost Cutters, First Choice Haircutters, and Roosters. During the same period, Regis accelerated the transfer of company-owned salons to franchisees. This shift meant that the SmartStyle network could increasingly be operated by local franchise partners under Regis's brand standards and agreements rather than directly by the parent company. The subsequent history of SmartStyle is best understood alongside Regis's continuing transformation from a large company-owned salon operator toward a more franchise-oriented business. Regis sold or transferred numerous salon assets, exited some ancillary businesses, and concentrated on its remaining brands. Public sources do not provide a complete standalone chronology for SmartStyle, including an independently reported founding year, founder, revenue series, or separate executive team. The brand remains associated with Walmart-based hair salons in the United States and with Regis Corporation's continuing salon operations.

1. 2019SmartStyle retained in Regis core-brand strategy

   Regis identified SmartStyle as one of five principal brands in a plan to reduce and simplify its larger collection of salon names.

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2. 2018Large-scale SmartStyle closures announced

   Regis announced the closure of 597 SmartStyle salons as part of a wider program addressing underperforming locations and restructuring its salon network.

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3. 1922Regis predecessor founded

   Paul and Florence Kunin established the beauty-salon business that later became Regis Corporation, the parent organization associated with SmartStyle.

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A convenient, accessible, value-oriented hair salon format serving mass-market and family customers, principally through Walmart-based locations.

• SmartStyle salon servicesHair salon services

  SmartStyle locations provide routine salon services such as haircuts, styling, shampooing, conditioning, coloring, and selected chemical treatments. The precise menu varies by location and local operator. The service format is intended for convenient, practical use by women, men, and children, with salons generally situated in Walmart stores and serving both appointment customers and, where available, walk-in traffic.

• SmartStyle hair-care retailBeauty and hair-care products

  SmartStyle salons may offer professional hair-care, styling, and treatment products associated with salon services. Product selection is location-dependent and public sources do not establish a single standardized national assortment or a separately reported SmartStyle product line.

• 2019Regis reduced its portfolio to five principal brandsStrategy

  Regis had operated a broad collection of salon brands and was pursuing simplification, asset sales, and a transition from company ownership toward franchising.

  What changed. Regis stated that SmartStyle would remain among its five principal brands, together with Supercuts, Cost Cutters, First Choice Haircutters, and Roosters.

  Aftermath. SmartStyle continued as a core Walmart-associated salon concept while other names and locations were sold, converted, closed, or transferred to franchisees.

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• 2018Regis approved broad SmartStyle location closuresStrategy

  Regis was dealing with declining performance in parts of its salon network and was reviewing company-owned locations across its portfolio.

  What changed. The company announced plans to close 597 SmartStyle salons.

  Aftermath. SmartStyle remained an active Regis brand, but with a smaller network and within a business increasingly oriented toward franchising and a reduced number of core salon brands.

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• 2019Regis identified SmartStyle as one of its core remaining brands

  As Regis reduced a portfolio that had contained numerous salon names, it stated that SmartStyle would remain among its principal brands alongside Supercuts, Cost Cutters, First Choice Haircutters, and Roosters.

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• 2018Regis announced the closure of 597 SmartStyle salons

  Regis Corporation announced plans to close 597 SmartStyle locations during a broader restructuring of its salon portfolio and efforts to improve the performance of company-owned operations.

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1. Regis Corporation
2. SmartStyle official website