Our Story

Family-owned in Albuquerque since 1980.

It was a different time, and women who wanted to build businesses often had to push their way into rooms that were not built for them. Jacqueline had already spent years doing exactly that. Her career began behind a barber chair, as one of the first women barbers in Albuquerque.

“There wasn’t a roadmap for women doing what I did,” she says. “I did it blindly.”

But she did it anyway.

Her daughter Elizabeth grew up in that building. As an adult, she took her place alongside Jacqueline on the salon floor. One woman’s courage became a mother-daughter partnership, and it has defined Tijeras ever since.

For more than four decades, clients have told Jacqueline the same thing. Tijeras feels safe.

Since 1980

In 1980, Jacqueline Asher was running a three-chair salon in 200 square feet. She loved the work and her clients. She just needed more room.

When she went to see a lawyer about moving into a larger space for her business, she walked out with advice she did not expect.

“Close your eyes,” he told her. “Picture the salon you want to build.”

So she did.

She found a lot where an old gas station had been on Indian School Road. The station came down, and the salon she’d been picturing started going up. When the financing fell through, she mortgaged her own house to keep going.

What We Believe

At Tijeras, every service starts with a real conversation. We look closely, ask thoughtful questions, and create a plan specific to you, not the person before you.

No two guests are the same. No two stories are the same. Beauty should never feel like a transaction.

When people feel truly cared for, confidence follows.

Forty Years of Familiar Faces

Many guests have been coming to Tijeras for decades. Some first visited before a wedding or a new career. Some came in simply needing to feel better. They still come. Their kids come. Some bring their grandchildren.

Those relationships are what this salon is made of.

Guests tell us they come in when the outside world feels overwhelming and they need a place where they can exhale. Tijeras has been that place for many people over the past four decades. For many of them, it feels like home.

Our door is still on Indian School Road, and it still opens with the same warmth it always has.

The Welcome Committee

Since the beginning, there have been dogs at Tijeras — family dogs, each with a personality of their own and a self-appointed job at the front door.

They are not shop dogs. They’re family, and they greet you like you’re family too.

For many guests, a wagging tail is the first welcome. A small reminder that this is a place where people are noticed, remembered, and cared for.

What began with men’s haircuts has grown into women’s hair, advanced color, texture services, curly hair, and skin care. Precision cutting is still the foundation on which everything else is built.

Our professional lines and tools are chosen with care, including Ouidad for curly hair, Alfaparf professional color, Lira Clinical for skin treatments, and other product lines selected through years of experience and education.

Tijeras has been recognized by Albuquerque The Magazine’s Best of the City awards in multiple categories, including Best Hair Salon, Best Hairstylist, and Best Colorist. We are proud of that. We are even more proud of the guests who have trusted us long enough to bring their daughters, their sons, and their grandchildren in.

How We Work

When you arrive, you may be greeted by someone from our front desk team, one of our stylists, and possibly our favorite salon greeters — the dogs.

“We never let the hard work dim our enthusiasm.”

That is not a policy. That is just who we are.

Our stylists use their phones during appointments to pull up visual references, past notes, and color formulas, so clients can see what’s possible before a cut or color begins. Nervous first-timers become confident regulars because of it.

Education is part of the culture here. When a stylist comes back from training, they teach everyone else. The knowledge does not stay with one person. It lifts the whole salon.

Why Products Matter to Us

In the 1980s, Jacqueline expanded her vision beyond the salon and developed her own product line, Tijeras Naturals. Long before natural beauty became mainstream, her products were sold through natural health food stores, including Whole Foods.

Working with chemists, she formulated solutions for hair that was thinning, dry, and brittle. She started with one product. It worked. She made another. Tijeras Naturals eventually grew to nineteen products.

One client changed her understanding of what product knowledge could mean.

A young man came in with thinning, badly dry, brittle hair. Jacqueline made him a proposal. Use the right shampoo and conditioner every day for two weeks, then come back.

He came back. His hair was shinier. Healthier. New growth was appearing.

She had not done anything dramatic. She’d given his hair what it needed. That lesson stayed with her.

Jacqueline has spent more than four decades learning the science of what works and what doesn’t. Every product line carried in the salon has been personally selected because of that experience.

Keratin hair care products at Tijeras Hair Co

Giving Back

Over the years, Tijeras has contributed cuts, services, products, and time to community members in need, and has donated to organizations serving Albuquerque. For Jacqueline, her daughter Elizabeth, and the Tijeras team, giving back has always been part of who we are.

Tijeras is more than a salon — we are part of the Albuquerque community, and we believe in caring for the community that has supported us for so many years.

The People Behind It All

Behind every service at Tijeras is a team that cares deeply about this work. They’re carrying on a story that started with one woman and a barber chair.

Meet Our Team