Sustainable Spa

When REBECCA OAZEM was growing up in Sao Paolo, Brazil, being environmentally conscious was just the way of life. Years later, she remained true to her roots when she opened the vegan, holistic Casa Prana Sustainable Head Spa & Salon in 2019.

“In the house I grew up in, most of the food that was in the fridge had come from the backyard, my grandma was composting and feeding her chickens, and growing her own herbs,” she says. “That’s how I first learned to minimize things.” 

Oazem, who is a certified hair loss practitioner and holistic trichologist, moved to Wilmington about thirteen years ago and worked at two different salons before opening her own.

“I just wasn’t fitting in, and I wanted something more from the services being offered in town,” she says. “I started with not wanting to be exposed to as much toxins and wanting a bit more control over what products and services were being offered. I also wanted to create somewhere that the community I wanted to be around would come to.”  

Oazem started playing with creating her own hair care products using ethically sourced and natural ingredients.

“A lot of my clients were guinea pigs in the beginning,” she says. In those early days, Oazem was focused on being sustainable and using no animal byproducts while developing the six original products she offered clients (she now offers over thirty-five products).

Another important factor in the sustainability of Casa Prana’s hair products is the refill program. Rather than buying new shampoo or conditioner in a new – likely plastic – bottle, customers return with their bottle to refill whatever they need. Oazem says the product line, Aware by Prana, has saved more than 30,000 plastic bottles from landfills since the refill program launched in 2019.

Sustainability also applies to waste generated by the salon. The team recycles all post-service waste through a Canada-based program called Green Circle Salon.

“All the hair clippings, leftover color, foil, gloves … all of it goes into a bucket that gets shipped to them and they turn it into renewable energy,” Oazem says. “Anything that we don’t ship out to them may go to UNCW’s recycling program, the city’s. … We probably have twelve different kinds of trash cans in the salon.”

The team also works to minimize the amount of product going down the drains and uses specific shower heads that reduce water usage by up to 65 percent.   

The team offers a holistic approach to hair care, asking new clients if they’re having any specific issues like poor scalp health or hair loss and taking in factors like diet and medication. 

“We also don’t double book people,” Oazem says. “The time that you’re there with us is yours. We don’t book three to four people at a time, we don’t cook anybody under heat lamps, we don’t do anything like that. I want to make sure that when someone is with us, they’re not just getting the hair care they need but a place to relax.” 

As with all services at the salon, the head spa utilizes natural elements to restore clients’ scalp and hair. “I’m a certified hair loss therapist and have been training in some Japanese techniques for scalp health,” Oazem says. “People have been coming in for years with real scalp disorders. But in recent months, the demand has been so high that I’ve been training the team to provide a head spa treatment that is more relaxation-geared, too.”

To view more of photographer Terah Hoobler’s work, go to terahhoobler.com.

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