Custom Salon Shirts
Custom salon shirts for hair salons, spas, lash studios and nail studios. Olive Branch Apparel prints and embroiders the tees, tanks, hoodies and hats your team wears behind the chair and your clients buy at the front counter, from our shop in Fort Collins, Colorado.
Hairstylist shirts have to survive color and lightener, look good in a mirror all day, and still feel like something you chose. Design yours in the studio below and see your price as you build. There is no minimum order, so a single booth renter can order one.
Design Your Salon Shirts Here
Drop your salon logo on a real tee, set the count, and watch the price for custom salon shirts change as you go. The studio opens on a soft, retail-fit jersey tee, the kind stylists wear on the floor and clients are happy to buy.
Custom Salon Shirts and the Color Bar Problem
A salon is one of the few workplaces where the shirt gets attacked from two directions. Hair color adds pigment and lightener takes it away. Which one your team handles most should decide whether you order dark shirts or light ones, before anyone talks about the logo.
Dark Shirts
Black is the salon standard for a reason. Drips of permanent color, toner and gloss mostly vanish into a black tee, and it looks sharp against any wall or cape. For a team that does more color deposits than lightening, black or charcoal stays presentable the longest.
Lightener is the weakness. Bleach strips the dye out of dark cotton and leaves orange or pink spots that no wash will bring back. The marks tend to collect at the hem, the cuffs and the stomach, wherever a stylist leans against the color bar or wipes a hand.
Light Shirts
White, cream and pale tees reverse the problem. Lightener has almost nothing to remove, so splashes do not show. Blonde specialists and anyone foiling all day often look cleaner at closing time in a light shirt than they would in a black one.
Hair color is what ruins them. Oxidative dye keeps darkening after it lands, so a drip that looked faint at noon is a brown or purple stain by evening. Light shirts also show foundation, spray tan and coffee, so they suit lash, nail and front desk roles better than a busy color bar.
The middle path is often the smartest. Heathered and mid-tone shirts disguise both kinds of mark better than a flat solid. Either way, treat floor shirts as consumable, order a few spares per person, and keep one clean shirt aside for photos and events.
What We Make for Salons, Spas and Studios
Printed Stylist Tees
Screen printed salon shirts for the floor, soft enough for a long day on your feet and simple to reorder when a new stylist joins.
Retail Merch for Clients
Tees and tank tops with artwork clients would buy anyway, printed to sell at the front counter beside the product shelf.
Hoodies, Hats and Beanies
Embroidered layers for cold openings, education days and the walk to the car, carrying the same mark as your shirts.
From Salon Logo to Folded Shirts
Six steps, with your approval on a proof before anything is printed or stitched.
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1
Pick Your Garment
Three we actually recommend, with the reasons why. Full catalog is one click away.
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2
Drop In Your Art
Upload a logo or start from a sketch. We fix files that will not print.
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3
See Your Price
Per-piece pricing moves as you change quantity and print locations.
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4
Approve A Proof
Nothing runs until you have seen exactly what we are about to make.
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5
We Print It
Screen print, embroidery or DTF, whichever your art and quantity call for.
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6
It Ships
About 14 days from the day you approve the proof, printed and boxed.
Dress the Floor and Stock the Shelf Together
Staff shirts and retail merch can share a logo and a color story, and the studio prices each garment as you build.
One Shirt Is an Order
A booth renter, a new assistant or a replacement for the tee that met the lightener can each be ordered alone. Bigger runs lower the per-piece price, but nothing forces you into one.
See the Script at Real Size
The proof shows your logo at its printed size on the garment color you picked. If a hairline script is too thin to hold, you learn that before anything is made.
Know the Cost Before You Commit
The studio updates the price as you change garment, quantity and print locations, so you can work out a retail price for merch without waiting on anyone.
Logo From a Screenshot
Plenty of salon logos exist only as a social profile image. Send what you have. We clean up or redraw rough art so the lines stay crisp on fabric.
When Salons Order Shirts and Merch
Salon apparel follows the appointment book. The busiest stretches for clients are the worst times to be chasing sizes and approving art, so the order should be finished before each one starts. These are the four moments that come up most.
A new salon or a new location wants matching shirts for opening week photos. Start the design while the build-out is still under way, since the logo is usually being finalized at the same time.
Spring and early summer fill with updos and on-site bridal parties. A clean, matching tee makes a team working in a hotel suite look like a business and not a group of friends.
Hair shows, classes and brand trainings put your team in a room full of other salons. A shirt with a strong back print gets your name noticed and photographed.
December is gift season, when clients are already buying at the counter. Retail tees, hoodies and beanies sell best when they are on the shelf by late autumn, so order in early fall.
Between those dates, orders are small and frequent. A stylist joins, an assistant gets promoted, a favorite shirt meets the lightener. With no minimum, replacing one or two pieces is routine, and the per-piece price improves whenever you can group them into a larger run.
How Custom Salon Shirts Are Printed
Screen printing is the workhorse for salon tees. Ink is pushed through a screen, one screen for each color, and cured so it bonds to the fabric. A one color logo in white on black is the classic salon shirt and also the most economical one to produce in quantity.
Salon logos create a specific challenge. Many are thin script, hairline serif lettering or a fine line drawing of a face or a pair of shears. Very thin strokes can break up in print and close up in embroidery, so we often thicken the lines slightly. You see the adjusted art on a proof first.
DTF, or direct-to-film, suits full-color art, gradients and very short runs, such as six shirts for a bridal team. It holds fine detail well. On large solid shapes it has a smoother, heavier feel than screen printed ink, so designs with open space sit more comfortably on a soft tee.
Embroidery works on hats, beanies, polos and heavier hoodies. On a thin, drapey tee it can pucker, so we usually point salon tees toward print. A small stitched mark on a beanie or a cap makes a good retail piece and holds up to long wear.
Chemicals matter for prints as well as fabric. Lightener mostly harms the dyed shirt and leaves cured ink alone, but acetone and strong solvents at a nail station can soften or lift printed designs. For nail technicians, a left chest or back placement keeps the print away from the table.
One thing to know before you plan a full uniform. We do not make capes, smocks or aprons. Our garments are t-shirts, long sleeve tees, tank tops, polos, hoodies, hats and beanies, the pieces worn under the apron and after the shift.
Opening a New Salon or Adding Chairs
Tell us your opening date and how many people you are outfitting. If the timing is tight, ask, sometimes it can be done faster.
Salon Apparel That Clients Want to Buy
Staff shirts and retail shirts should not be the same design. A staff shirt identifies who works here. A retail shirt has to compete with everything else in a client's closet, so it needs to be something they would pick up even if they had never heard of the salon.
Lead with an idea, not the logo. A short phrase stylists really say, a simple illustration, or the neighborhood name tends to move better than the salon mark blown up large. Put the logo small on the sleeve, the back neck or the hem and let the front do the selling.
Fit matters more here than in most trades. A soft unisex tee that drapes well suits a wide range of bodies, and many clients size up for a relaxed look. A modest first run across the middle sizes shows what your clientele reaches for before you commit to more.
Hair salon shirts also work for independent stylists. Booth renters and suite owners are each their own brand, and a tee with a personal logo or booking handle is a business card clients wear. Since one piece is a fine order, a solo stylist can test a design without buying a box of shirts.
Lash studios, nail studios and day spas usually want a quieter look. Small tone-on-tone prints, neutral colors and a soft hand suit a calm room better than a loud graphic. A long sleeve tee or a light hoodie also covers staff who work in strong air conditioning all day.
Questions Salon Owners Ask
Is there a minimum order for custom salon shirts?
No. Custom salon shirts can be ordered one at a time, which suits booth renters, suite owners and salons that add a stylist every few months. The per-piece price drops as quantity goes up, so a full team order is better value, and single replacements can follow whenever you need them.
Should we choose black or light shirts for the color bar?
It depends on the work. Black hides hair color and toner but shows lightener as orange or pink spots that never wash out. White and pale shirts hide lightener but stain from color. Many salons settle on charcoal or a heathered mid-tone and plan for a few spare custom salon shirts per stylist each year.
Can bleach spots be prevented or fixed?
Not really. Once lightener removes dye from fabric, the color is gone. An apron over the shirt is the real protection. Polyester blends often resist lightener better than pure cotton, though no dyed fabric is immune. The practical answer is to treat floor shirts as consumable and reorder single pieces as they wear out.
Do you make capes, smocks or aprons?
No, those are outside what we carry. We stock t-shirts, long sleeve tees, tank tops, polos, hoodies, hats and beanies. Those are the pieces stylists wear under an apron and clients buy as merch, and the same logo can go on every one of them so the team and the retail shelf match.
What sells best as salon merch?
Designs clients would wear with no connection to the salon tend to do best. That usually means a soft tee, a short phrase or a simple drawing, and a small logo. Start with a modest run of custom salon shirts in the middle sizes, see what moves, and reorder the winners.
Will our thin script logo print clearly?
Often it needs a little help. Hairline strokes can break up in ink and close up in thread. We thicken or redraw the art where needed and send a proof at real size. You approve that proof before anything is printed, so you know how the script will read on the shirt.
How long does a salon order take?
Standard turnaround is about 14 days from the day you approve your proof. For a grand opening, a hair show or the holiday retail season, count back from the date and allow time to gather sizes. If your date is tight, ask us. Sometimes it can be done faster.
Do you ship outside Colorado?
Yes. The shop is in Fort Collins, Colorado, and orders ship across the United States. Designing, proofing and approval all happen online or by phone. If you would like to talk it through, a person answers the phone on weekdays, 9am to 5pm Mountain.
Where We Are
Olive Branch Apparel
706 East Stuart Street
Fort Collins, CO 80525
Put Your Salon Name on a Shirt Worth Wearing
Pick a garment, add your logo and see your price in the studio. You approve a proof before anything is made, and one piece is a fine place to start.