BUSINESS

Bug & Weed Mart owner Jim LaBrie stands next to his son Joe who operates the Scottsdale location and acts as the business’s director of operations. Bug & Weed Mart has been in business for over 40 years and has had a presence in Scottsdale for over two

decades. (Special to the Progress)

Bug & Weed Mart thrives with family Stylists prove mothers can do anything

BY ALEX GALLAGHER Progress Staff Writer

Like most things, it started with a need, Owner Jim LaBrie likes to tell people about how he founded Bug & Weed Mart over 40 years ago.

LaBrie had been teaching at Alhambra High School and felt bugged by critters that snuck into his home.

However, since he was on a teacher’s salary, he couldn’t afford an exterminator. So he decided to do the best he could by going to hardware stores and purchasing the best bug juice he could find.

Unfortunately, the sprays didn’t do the trick. So, he kept searching until he stumbled into a small shop in Mesa that had what he needed.

LaBrie was able to purchase the same chemicals used by professional exterminators and his creepy-crawly visitors took a hike.

He became so impressed by the concept that he kept a close eye on it and eventually purchased the business he once patronized, giving birth to Bug & Weed Mart.

Before Jim knew it, the business be-

Scottsdale.org l @ScottsdaleProgress /ScottsdaleProgress

BY CHRISTINA FUOCO-KARASINSKI

Progress Staff Writer

Amy Phillips was helping her mother move when she came across one of her class assignments.

“It was a paper I wrote when I was 9 about what I wanted to be when I grew up,” Phillips said. “I said a hairdresser or a babysitter.”

The North Phoenix resident is living her dream with True Salon in the Scottsdale Airpark. She and fellow stylist Holly Canton founded the space earlier this spring.

“We wanted people to feel comfortable and safe,” said Canton, a California native.

“We wanted just a comfortable place for clients to get their hair done. It’s like you’re home, but you’re not. We knew it would be stressful, but if we did it together, it would be fun.”

Located in Salon Plaza, True Salon offers haircuts and trims for children, preteen/teen and adults; highlights; glaze; blow dry; men’s cuts; color correction and waxing.

True Salon sells Virtue products that rebuild and restore hair. They have been touted by a myriad of magazines as well as Oprah Winfrey.

“We both wanted something that had a clean, fresh smell and was better for the environment,” Canton adds. “We tried it personally, because we try everything on us, and it’s incredible.

“It’s an up-and-coming line. It’s all over Instagram and Sephora has it. It’s

Holly Canton, left, and Amy Phillips founded True Salon in Salon Plaza in May. (Dennis Murphy/Progress Contributor) perfect.” Before Canton entered the industry 15 years ago, she wavered between playing professional soccer and doing hair. When she and her husband relocated to the Valley, she was hired by Cast Salon & Spa at High Street. There, she and Phillips, who also worked there, became acquainted with each other’s work. “I always dreamed of having my own really intimate place,” said Phillips, a Chicago native. “It took 26 years, but we did it.” “We wanted a place for our customers to feel comfortable, somewhere they can share their super exciting or sad news. We wanted something very cozy and inseeTRUE page31

timate and where people felt safe.”

The spot has stylists’ chairs, a shampoo bowl and a hutch that holds Virtue’s colorful bottles. Serene and cozy, like Phillips said, True Salon is perfect for individualized attention and it’s less intimidating than larger spaces.

“Everybody is treated equally — if they’re famous or not,” Canton said. “That’s what we would want. I sometimes walk into stores looking like I just rolled out of bed, and they treat me weird. I’m still in there ready to buy something, though. It doesn’t matter who it is. We want everyone to feel equally welcome.”

The salon’s moniker aligns with their beliefs as well.

“We named it ‘True’ because we were being true to ourselves,” Phillips said. “We believe in each other. There are some technological issues that we struggle with, but we just figure it out because we’re worth it. It would be a disservice to our families and daughters if we didn’t pursue our dreams. We’re showing our kids that mom can do everything.”

True Salon 7077 E. Bell Road, Suite 200, Scottsdale truesalon.glossgenius.com

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BUG ���� page 30

gan to swarm its way from its humble beginnings in Mesa to four more locations in the valley: Gilbert, Scottsdale, Tempe and Phoenix.

“We started as one store in Mesa and our customers who drove from other areas told my dad ‘hey, we’d love to be able to come to see you’ or ‘is there a chance you could open (another) store’ and the business finally justified enough growth,” said Jim’s son Joe, who joined the business in 2010 and currently operates the Scottsdale location in addition to acting as the companies director of operations.

One by one, the stores kept opening and the timing became perfect for Jim to turn the business over to his daughter Cara and son Joe.

Although he admits he did put his kids through the wringer in the years leading up to their transition. “Terrible, I had to fire them four times,” Jim said with a laugh after being asked what it was like to work with his children. “But it worked out pretty well because it is a business relationship and they’ve learned enough over the years about how to do things and they’re quite mature.”

However, Joe and Cara have proven their worth by managing their way through shortages of certain products and dealing with rising costs.

“There were some spikes that were crazy recently. And that was followed by the unavailability,” Joe said. “I’m very proud to say we’ve worked diligently to maintain stock on all of our items even though it’s been a little bit of a hop, skip and a jump to where I will have to stuff products in my trunk and lug them from one store to another some days.”

Joe believes that the tide is beginning to settle in terms of having items on backorder. “It looks like things are finally starting to mellow a bit and I’m very happy to say we have not been out of stock for anything our customers have needed,” Joe said.

This has come at the most opportune time as Joe has just begun stacking his shelves in preparation the re-emergence of scorpions and mosquito season looms. “Scorpions have kind of been the long-standing given here,” Joe said. “However, in the last couple of years, we’ve seen a lot more mosquito activity and the West Nile virus is here which is a pretty real issue.”

Those are not the only critters that Joe has seen jump into the fold in recent years either.

“We’ve also seen a roof rat infestation that used to be focused on just a couple of neighborhoods, and many more places now than it used to be,” he said. However, Joe feels confident in his products and authentic approach to customer service but in terms of the future expansion of the business, he plans to continue to do whatever his dad wants.

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