STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Nelly Etelzon, 26, remembers when she was a kid and her moms and dads would place a phase stool by the sink in their barber store so she could clean clients’ hair.

For as extensive as she could recall, the Tottenville resident helped her dad and mom, Mike and Ada Etelzon — who immigrated to the United States from Russia additional than 30 several years back — at Mike’s Barber Shop, which they personal, in Excellent Kills.

“I mainly grew up in the hair planet,” she reported. “I watched my mother and father slice hair and do the job hard jogging their effective business enterprise. …I was usually my father’s minimal assistant. My mom, again in Russia, did women’s hair, so she confirmed me a handful of things.”

It was not prolonged prior to Etelzon resolved to go to Paul Mitchell elegance university to become a hairstylist.

“I preferred to maintain hair in our relatives,” she claimed.

Following doing work for 5 several years at other salons, she reported she required far more duty, and to run her have organization, like she viewed her mom and dad do for so lots of several years.

“I know it is a whole lot of tricky perform. I have viewed my dad for several several years. But I genuinely desired to personal my own company,” said Etelzon.