Beauty is pain, but it can also be green. One Renton salon is reducing their carbon footprint with the perfect blowout.

1630 Hair Artisans is a hair salon in the Highlands that recently partnered with Green Circle Salons, a company that helps recycle nearly 95 percent of salon waste.

According to Christine Blankenship, owner of the salon, most of their waste is leftover hair and metal foil used in hair coloring.

Typically, excess hair clippings is put into the garbage and eventually thrown into landfills. Since hair doesn’t decompose properly, it ends up producing methane gas. Thanks to Green Circle, hair is now collected and made into hair booms, an instrument used to clean up coastal oil spills.

Every two weeks, the company comes to the salon to recycle not only hair, but also hair foils, hair appliances, color tubing, leftover color, light bulbs, aerosol cans, batteries, product containers and any other plastic or paper materials.

Blankenship first heard Green Circle at a local presentation and was immediately drawn to the idea of transforming her salon in an environmentally-conscious one.

“What we’re really trying to do is keep the waste from the landfills and the water,” she said. “I fish, so I want to be able to keep fishing and not pollute our local water at all.”

But fishing isn’t the only thing that was on her mind as she made this green move.

“Part of it is because I have grandkids,” Blankenship said. “I have never thought of myself as an environmentally-conscious person, but I have watched a lot of movies recently on what’s happening to our planet and how we can’t keep doing what we’re doing and expect it to be here for our grandkids. That was a big thing… We need to start thinking about being able to sustain this for future generations. That’s really what this is.”

Partnering with Green Salons isn’t the only thing that’s green at 1630. Most of the products they use are also environmentally-friendly brands, including Davines and Kevin Murphy.

Ever since they started to partner with Green Circles last year, there has been positive customer response.

“A lot people like to know that we care,” she said.

Green hasn’t yet become the dominant beauty standard yet, Blankenship said.

“It’s a niche thing,” she added. “But it’s the fastest-growing segment of the beauty industry… the segment that’s environmentally and socially conscious.”

The salon has to pay Green Circles $1 per customer they serve each month, but Blankenship said that it hasn’t affected their service charges because this is a cost that’s “worth it.”

As the only salon in Renton that has partnered with Green Circles, Blankenship assumes a reason why other salons haven’t jumped on board is lack of knowledge and likely the cost of the service.