Patty DiDio

Patty DiDio has the best job, clients, and friends in the world. She identified her passion at a young age and has been working as a hairstylist for the last 32 years. Patty began her career as a hair assistant at the age of only four years old when she “worked” at the corner hair salon, Mr. Ray’s, with her mother in South Philly. Her mother and her friends, Cookie and Bobby, would get the roller set and beehives every Saturday and young Patty would proudly hand them over to Mr. Ray.
As she grew up, she began practicing her hairstyling on every Barbie and doll that she came across. By the age of 11, she was cutting her own hair and, on one very unfortunate occasion, attempting to become a blonde with the help of Clorox and a Roux rinse. As could be surmised, she only succeeded in drying her hair out. She continued learning the intricacies of hairstyling and soon was (mostly) successfully touching up her mother’s hair and cutting her friends’. She was really only yelled at a few times by her friends’ mothers. Who knew that bangs weren’t supposed to be up to the hairline?
At VoTech, she breezed through the formal training. Despite her teenage years being spent in and out of foster care, Patty prioritized her education. After graduating high school, she attended Lansdale School of Cosmetology where she found a posting that led to her first (life changing!) job in the field. While working as a shampoo girl at Rapunzel’s Hair Salon, she was trained by two amazing hairstylists. The award-winning husband and wife hairstylists took Patty on as their hairstyling apprentice (aka teaching guinea pig).  By the age of 20, she was on the floor and cutting hair in her own chair. She attributes her hairstyling success to the training and education that she received and continues to pursue from sources such as Sassoon, Toni and Guy, and the renowned Martin Parson. She is consistently seeking to gain new skills and information on color and style treatments, haircutting, and product lines.
But, as the great Tabitha Coffey has said, hairstyling “is not just about the hair, but the people.” Patty has had the privilege of working with clients from their first haircut to their wedding day and then to their child’s first haircut. She considers this commitment from clients to be one of the highest honors and is thankful for the friendships she has developed in the course of these 30+ year relationships.  She truly appreciates each one of them.
After Rapunzel’s, Patty worked at two other salons for 11 and 15 years, respectively, before joining the Salon Nochea family. Celebrating six years of working here, she truly couldn’t be happier or prouder of the Salon Nochea team. She recognizes all of the wonderful things that her career has brought her, including the love of her life, her husband of 25 years, Bob, their beautiful home that they built from the ground up, her family, including her nieces, nephews, mother-in-law, sister- and brothers-in-law, late sister, Miranda, and most importantly the light of her life, her 21-year-old son Dominic.
Her career has allowed her to care for and help her family and the wider community and this is the reason she considers her job to be the best on Earth