In the shadow of the tourist trap that is Hollywood and Highland, it’s easy to forget that the boulevard it calls home was once a wasteland inhabited by vagrants and actual hookers (not just party girls who dress the part).

Twelve years ago—before the Kodak Theater, Les Deux and Element moved into the neighborhood—hair stylist Chris D’Anda quit her job at a high-profile Beverly Hills salon and opened up her own single-seat operation on Las Palmas Ave. “I liked it when everywhere you went in Hollywood was a dive,” D’Anda says. “A decade ago, people didn’t go past La Brea. Now they’re building a W Hotel on Hollywood and Vine.”

Located on the second floor of a cozy two-story house, Je Jeune Salon feels like your best friend’s apartment—minus her couch-hogging loser boyfriend. “I wanted to do something warm and cozy, so I went to thrift stores and picked up what I thought was cute,” she says. “I didn’t want to decorate myself into a niche with leopard-print chairs or anything like that.”

It’s strange to hear D’Anda rap about her quest for material normalcy, especially in an age when forced eccentricity is more common than wearing tights as pants, but she’s far too genuine for that. “I just can’t bring myself to have an ‘it’s all about me’ attitude like some people in this town. Sometimes I think that’s my downfall, but if I ever developed one, that would be selling out on my part.”

D’Anda may look like Betty Page and sound like Parker Posey, but don’t let her friendly demeanor or the laid-back atmosphere of her salon fool you—the woman is a perfectionist. “One of the things I witnessed working at some of the bigger salons was that some people would do the same haircut on almost every single one of their clients,” she says. Having cut everyone from rock stars Aerosmith and Courtney Love to young starlets Anna Faris and Scarlett Johansson, D’Anda knows a thing or two about accommodating different hair types. “Everyone that sits in my chair is a whole new blank canvas,” she adds. “I work to create something appropriate for that particular person. If you come in and you look like a beach girl, I’m not going to try and make you punk rock.”

Perhaps that’s why she’s still alive and snipping after all these years. She’s one of the few stylists in L.A. who sees her clients for who they are, not who she thinks they’d sell more opening-weekend tickets as. So why not open up a larger salon to accommodate more customers? “My clients get me from start to finish instead of getting bounced around to five different people, and I like that aspect,” D’Anda explains. “I think I create a closer bond that way. I don’t think I have any clients that I don’t consider a friend.”

Having recently launched a hair-care product line—currently consisting of shampoo and conditioner, with more products to come—D’Anda has her hands full. If you’ve never heard of her or her salon before, don’t feel too bad. Even so-called experts don’t know about her. “L.A. Weekly did a piece on everything Las Palmas, and they totally forgot to include me,” she says. “I’m so off the radar, they didn’t know I was here. I was bummed at first, but it was kind of cool—having that edge of not everybody knowing I’m here and by appointment only.”

Click here for Je Jeune Salon's location and contact info.

Marcos Luevanos is Style editor for Metromix Los Angeles.