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On a sunny Wednesday morning, Molly is in with her regular hairstylist, Colleen “Bettie” Sheffler, for a touch-up, her hair rippling in choppy dark waves. Molly found the salon, Bombshell Transformations, soon after moving to the Kenton neighborhood from California two years ago, and has been coming back faithfully ever since.
“Hair is a big thing, especially for trans women,” Molly says. “I’d never been to a proper salon before, to be honest. I used to ignore my hair, or just ask that it be cut into a shape.”
Bangs, of course, are tricky for everyone. But for trans people, getting a haircut in any style presents a spectrum of potential risks, ranging from awkward and frustrating misunderstandings to traumatically hostile encounters—especially if your hairstylist has been trained only in traditionally rigid masculine or feminine styles.
“I don’t get that here,” Molly says, adding that she’s also taken makeup courses Sheffler offers. “It’s nice to feel accepted and taken care of.”
The full-service salon, kitty-corner to historic St. Johns City Hall, is not simply inclusive of the LGBTQ+ community. It was founded specifically for transgender and nonbinary clients. Depending on the day and service, clients might even be styled and pampered by a hairstylist, esthetician or other expert whose gender identity and presentation matches their own.
Sheffler, who identifies as a queer femme, is married to a nonbinary person. She founded Bombshell Transformations in September 2023, after working as a hairstylist in other salons for years. She got into styling trans clients when her child began coming to terms with her own trans identity.
“I have to teach [my daughter] these things, like how to do makeup and how to style her hair and stuff,” she says.
Soon, Sheffler expanded to teaching classes on makeup skills and offering image consulting for trans women, and the dream of a salon centering trans clients began to take shape.
Sheffler found a space, but it required her to rent the entire corner salon, with room for two chairs, hair washing stations, a massage parlor, a laundry room and more. She realized she would need a little help from her friends (and a good business loan).
Today, six people work alongside her at Bombshell, including hairstylists, a massage therapist, and a permanent makeup artist.
Past traditional hairstyling, coloring and cutting, Sheffler makes custom hairpieces for clients experiencing hair loss. And when it comes to image consulting, her approach is a bit like the What Not to Wear reboot where Stacy London and Clinton Kelly are nice now.
“I never want to tell anyone how to dress,” Sheffler says. “It’s more like, what’s going to make you feel the best? What areas of your body create dysphoria for you, and how can we make that feel better for you?”
When opening Bombshell, Sheffler founded a nonprofit called the T House to offset the costs of offering free beauty services to clients experiencing financial insecurity. Economic studies consistently show transgender people are paid less than their cisgender peers, with trans women being the lowest income group.
“I know from my clients and my daughter and her process how important it is to have support transitioning and exploring your gender identity,” Sheffler says. “If you can’t afford your hormone replacement or can’t afford to get your hair done or whatever, it can really be dysphoria-creating.”
Bombshell has also become a kind of incubator for beauty and wellness practitioners interested in serving queer and trans clients.
Theo Rumley-Wells, a massage therapist, started working at Bombshell Transformations in April after responding to an online post. While massage isn’t the most obvious piece of this puzzle, Rumley-Wells says that in his experience, trans people like him often write massage off as a luxury they’ll have to live without. Operating within a space like Bombshell, where queerness and transness are fully embraced, Rumley-Wells says, changes things.
“You can’t heal if you are masking, or if you have to hide yourself,” he says. “Massage isn’t quite medicine, but it is healing.”
So far, Rumley-Wells says he sees four to five clients weekly. He’s still growing his practice. It’s his first gig out of massage school, which, like hair and beauty schools, still doesn’t teach students how to meet trans or nonbinary clients’ needs. But he’s figuring it out in a salon on prime downtown St. Johns real estate, one appointment at a time.
