I can't believe that only now I found out that there is an interactive salon chair that came with Open for Business. I remember having watched OFB trailers when it came out but must have missed this one:
http://www.ea.com/the-sims-2-open-f...000ab65140aRCRD

Is this hair salon only available in community lots or can I place it in a home lot?

The chair is under Seating/misc.

And you can place it on home lots as well as community lots.

I can't seem to get them to work properly on an owned lot that a Sim of mine visits, but they are neat for staging pictures

To get your hair done at an owned lot you need to come with your motives high, click on the chair as soon as you get there, and wait. And wait. And wait. Till somebody comes to do your hair. Kind of like waiting for the register. If you get a bad makeover click on the chair again immediately till you get it the way you want it.

The thing I have problems with is selling makeovers to townies when I'm running the owner. Haven't done it yet!

My stylist hasn't been able to sell makeovers on her owned community lot either, although she doesn't have a styling badge yet and her business rank is only at 1, so I don't know if those are factors. She is getting stars for her free makeovers, so I hope it's only a matter of time.

Ok, what if we need two sims, one who waits at chair, and the other would do the talking and stuff? Shouldn't this help?

I've never had a problem selling makeovers playing the owner of a community lot. I believe you do need to set a price for a makeover before you can sell them. Otherwise all you can do is freebies. You set the price by clicking on the chair. It's one of the pie menu options. Once that's done, it's like any other business: The customers come in, stand by the chair hemming and hawing about whether to buy, and the higher the price, the more hemming and hawing they do.) During this time, you can do sales interactions with them, same as any other business. Once they decide to go for it, they sit in the chair and off you go. If you want more than one chair, you can hire employee stylists. You set the price for the individual chairs and then assign stylists to them. It's pretty straight-forward. If you can't get it to work, I'd suggest double-checking that you've set a price.

I always ended up doing free makeovers because I could never sell a makeover, with both a sales person and hair stylist. But, it's been so long since I even bothered to price it, that i may try adjusting the price. How would that work with home business? Again it's been so long since I had one of those, because I couldn't/can't figure out how to have friends over, without having the "open sign" on. I close, call them over, and they leave!!

Aside from a couple of produce stands here and there, I've never done home businesses. I just prefer to have businesses on separate lots. So I'm not sure that it's the same, but I would assume it would be. I'd guess it's just: Register the home business, buy the chair, set the price, badda-bing, badda-bang.

I don't know why you wouldn't be able to invite people over when the home business is closed, though. Sounds like a glitch to me.

I know I have, because I have separate options to "offer makeover to" and "offer free makeover to." But nobody ever looks at the chair. Maybe my problem is that I have too many other things for sale? I have two businesses with chairs, one a full boutique with a clothes rack and deco bath/bedroom items for sale, and one an amalgam of bookstore, boutique, and ice cream parlor.

It's been a while since I've done a salon, TBH, but you also might need to have someone standing at/assigned to the chair(s) before customers will start thinking about buying. Once they're thinking, though, you can definitely break the Sim away from his/her chair and do sales interactions.

But it is true that the more stuff you have for sale, the more customer attention will be divided. Maybe make some stuff not for sale for a bit and see what happens, then add saleable stuff back until you get a balance? The salons I've run have always been just salons, tiny ones with one chair and nothing else for sale so no need for a till and such, because their sole purpose is to makeover townies, not to make the salon owner rich.

...Now that I think about it, that sort of business might actually work better as a home business. At least then there'd be no loading screens because there'd be no sending the owner to and from the shop.

On a related note, I've never gotten a sim to gold talent badge level with the chair. Does it work like the crafting stations, where more options become available as the skill increases, or is it just like restocking and running the register, where the only advantage is that you complete the action faster and mess up the makeover less?

I think cleaning skills help. But, it's all about the hours that are put into it. I don't recall what the gold hours are?

It works like restocking and running the register. I don't think it speeds up the time required to do the makeover but it does cut down on the chance of failure. As with most badges, the makeover badge has a skill and personality trait that significantly speeds up the time required to get to gold (Cleaning/Neat). When I have a sim born in game with 10 neat points I assign them the task of making over the 'hood and if I stick with it they usually earn their gold badge sometime in uni.

I've never had a problem running a makeover chair on either home or community lot businesses. I hire employees with silver or gold makeover badges and customers flock to them right away. I had one teen with a gold badge who earned tips too!

And I don't know if this is a glitch or a really hidden feature, but occasionally the 'plastic surgery' window (the same as with the ShowBiz career reward) comes up instead of the 'makeover' window when I use the chair. When it does I give the poor sim some pretty crazy features, like a giant nose or big bug eyes. I use the chair a lot (to make over townies) but this glitch maybe happens once in a hundred tries. Anybody else ever see this?

My Nina Caliente ran a successful home salon business for years. Customers would come and deliberate by the chair and once deciding to purchase would sit down, or if the chair was occupied they would go sit on the couch and wait their turn. Her kids helped out by keeping the waiting customers entertained. Eventually Nina got so good she started getting tips, as darthesp mentioned.

I think it was helpful that I set the price on the chair low, so I didn't have to bother with sales interactions. Also, makeovers were all that was available, so no distractions for customers.

I never had the plastic surgery window come up in all the time I played that business, but I also played it before adding later EPs which I know caused some glitches with home businesses.

I love the idea of a beauty salon, but I've never been able to get the chair to work.
I put a price on it, relatively cheap, and customers never come and look at it. So I tell them "hey, let me show you!" and point them to the chair. They stand and ponder for a bit, and I use my sales techniques to convince them, but after their sales bar goes to the top they just stop completely! This happens whether I have a waiting stylist or not. Free makeovers however, works every time. What the?!