Editor's note: Este artículo está traducido al español.
A mother-daughter duo has brought the first Blo Blow Dry Bar to the Valley, offering what they describe as a positive and electric environment for women looking for a place to receive anything from tape-in extensions and makeovers to a self-esteem boost.
It was important to mom Azure White and daughter Bailee Read that the environment for the salon, which they recently franchised in Southwest Las Vegas, was family-oriented, girl-friendly, free of judgment and ultimately a place where guests can just be themselves, White said.
“From our employees to our guests—everyone—our intention is to have that ‘girls’ feeling of, you’re in the bathroom and you’re getting ready together, and everyone’s getting their hair done, someone’s doing their eye makeup in the back corner with a mirror, and there’s music going and we’re just laughing,” Read said. “And I’m so happy to say that almost every single day that I walk into that bar, that’s exactly what’s going on.”
It’s exciting to be giving something back to the community she and her family have been a part of for so long, said Read, who was born and raised in Las Vegas. Her mother has lived in the Valley since age 5.
“We’re a little bit of control freaks,” said Read, who has a marketing background and runs all of the business’s events and community outreach. “So, if we were going to do it, we were going to do it ourselves, and we were going to do it together.”
The pair chose to franchise Blo because they believed it was best suited for a family-owned concept, said White, a cosmetologist of three decades. She’s also a luxury real estate agent, White said, which is how she and her daughter determined Rainbow Boulevard was the market for their business.
Read and her sister, both of whom White called her “best friends,” practically grew up in the salon with their mother, so opening Blo was an easy transition. Though it’s Read and White driving the venture, it’s become an entire family affair, with Read’s sister helping and White’s husband taking care of payroll and other such business.
With Blo, Read said, the mother-daughter duo had a lot of control over the store’s environment and could make it “as perfect” as they wanted.
When the pair attended a franchisee conference for the brand last winter, Read said, they knew they would bring it back to their hometown and make it the best it could be—especially as the Valley’s first Blo.
“Like, we are going to make Vegas explode with so much joy of having this, and then we’re going to make everyone else explode with so much joy that we’re part of their company,” Read said. “So we were really excited to be the breakout. We are big personalities. We’re not afraid to shout from the mountaintops for something that we want or think that is right. So being the first ones was almost more enticing to us. Rather than coming into a marketplace that had another location, we loved the fact that we were going to be the first.”
And one month in, clients, were saying that the store was very accepting, White said.
“Every single time they’re like, ‘It’s so homey and here I feel so pretty. It was such a positive experience,’” White said. “And that’s what’s important to us.”
Like Cheers, White emphasized, she and her daughter wanted Blo to be a place where everybody knows your name.
“It’s girlhood,” Read said. “We love the variety of personalities that come in from guests and from employees. And it’s a space that everyone just gets to have the chance to be themselves.”
While it can feel overwhelming to be working with family—meaning shop talk is intermingled with personal business—Read said it’s in her family’s nature to “go, go, go” at all times.
“One thing that I feel like we would say all the time before opening is that we created our dream team, and now that we are open, we really see it,” she said.
And they’re not done yet. The long-term goal is to open multiple locations, White said.
She’s very proud of her daughters, White said, seeing how they treat employees and the women who come into the salon. The venue’s nearly dozen stylists have become like family, she said.
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