Matt Fugate knows the power of a good ‘do.

The Enumclaw-native heir – pun intended – to the local car dealership decided to go rouge after a nasty car accident helped him realize life was too short to not do something he was passionate about.

And what he was passionate about was hair; during high school, he hung out with his older cousin Janae Watterson at her previous salon in Federal Way.

“[I] loved the salon environment. I thought it was such a cool place to hang out. And leaving there, you always felt great,” he said in a recent interview. “I just want to hang out with people, make them feel great about themselves.”

After signing on with Janae to get his feet wet, Matt’s journey took him to New York, where he honed his skills on some of the country’s most famous faces at the Sally Hershberger salon.

You may not have heard of it, but Julia Roberts, Meg Ryan, Nicole Kidman, Kate Hudson, Kate Winslet, Uma Thurman, and Renée Zellweger sure had – they were all regular clients, at least at one point. Matt personally styled the likes of Blake Lively, Karlie Kloss, and Lea Michele, and for his efforts, won four “Best of the Best” awards from Allure Magazine.

To be more accessible to his clients, Matt eventually relocated to Los Angeles – but then his daughter, Phoenix, was born, and he decided he needed to focus more on his family and put the celebrity lifestyle behind him.

“I decided it was time to move home,” he said. “I wanted to raise her in the great town I was raised in.”

Back on the Plateau, Matt once again signed on with Janae, who had opened Salon Kathleen at the east end of Cole Street, and then followed her to the larger space on Blake Street where she moved her business to in April 2021. He was excited to “take everything I learned in the big city without being a pretentious a******* about it” and give the people of the Plateau the same experience he gave his more famous clients.

Then a single father came into the salon – he had recently lost his wife and realized he had no idea how to do his daughter’s hair, so he came to Matt for advice.

As both a professional stylist and a father, “I realized I had a skill-set I can give to a lot of dads,” he said.

So he started hosting what he has called “Operation Tactical Cuteness” – or Daddy/Daughter Date Night on social media – to teach dads how to help their daughters with their hair.

“Girls, they do it naturally. They’ve been doing it their whole life,” he said. “Us guys, [we] grab a hairbrush and look like it’s a time bomb in [our] hands.”

Hair can be tricky, but Matt has a secret weapon – he’s a dude that can talk to other dudes.

“I can bro-code out these hair styles and not make them sound overwhelming for the guys — explain them with more of a guy’s perspective,” he said.

For example, when showing fathers how to brush their daughter’s hair, he uses racket sport references to help position their wrists.

And there are special tools he demonstrates that work better for dads than than traditional products.

“When we’re doing ponytail tutorials, instead of them trying to figure out their big man hands with these little tiny hair elastics, I have found… a much different way to bind ponytails,” Matt said. “It’s basically like a bungee cord. If you took a bungee cord on your truck with two hooks on each end and a bungee wire between them, they make them really, really small for ponytails” and leave girls with the best ponytail they ever had, he continued.

The Daddy/Daughter Date Nights are once every quarter and the classes fill up quickly – Matt likes to keep them to 25 daddy-daughter teams so that he can give everyone individual attention. They’re hosted at the salon, but Sun Health Bar next door provides smoothies for the kids. You can learn about when the classes are being held through Salon Kathleen and Matt’s social media pages.

“It ends up being an awesome night, all around,” Matt said.

Saloon Kathleen came third in The Courier-Herald’s “Best Of” contest this year, behind Salon 790 and the winner, Rainier Beauty, but still garnered more than 130 votes.

Matt says the salon is so popular with Plateau residents not only because of the high-end skills its stylists provide – he mentions that Salon Kathleen has two “master color-certified” stylists (of which there are only 50) and Janae said the salon was named one of the L’Oreal Pro Top 100 hair salons last year – but because the salon wants to provide “the most high-end experience with customer service, without trying to be a big-city salon.”

Janae added that Salon Kathleen also works at giving back to its community, not just through Daddy/Daughter Date Nights but through fundraising for The Foundation for Grieving Children, a nonprofit that aims to provide comfort to kids, teens, and young adults after a loved one dies.

“I believe these are a few things Salon Kathleen puts time into that our community really appreciates and we love being a part of,” Janae said. “From hair services to skin and lashes our team creates beautiful results and I think our community also respects and honors that.”

For more information about Salon Kathleen, head to salonkathleen.com.