Beauty

Beauty School: Browbar

Jackson Reeves — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 12:00:00 GMT

“I’m obsessive about my brows,” says Sadaf Kherani, who was born in Pakistan and raised in Marietta. Along with her brother Fahad Haroon, Kherani runs Browbar, which specializes in threading, an ancient Middle Eastern technique. Using a string placed on both sides of an eyebrow section, threading quickly removes hair by simply twisting it out at the follicle level. (The salon also offers conventional waxing and tweezing options, along with facials and eyelash-specific services.)

For Kherani and Haroon, Browbar’s Inman Park location set the tone for their shop’s decor. To avoid the harsh, aseptic feel of some beauty salons and to reflect their hip environs, they populated Browbar with an ornate birdcage, chairs with turquoise animal prints, and art deco mirrored tables, which they found in antique shops such as Kudzu. Coral and seafoam green walls help undercut the space’s industrial vibe, while damask-print wallpaper adds a playful touch. “It’s more of a boutiquey place,” Kherani explains. Indulge in a $20 threaded eyebrow shaping and finish it off with a soothing Clovertree balm while contemplating the results in one of Browbar’s gold rococo mirrors. 240 North Highland Avenue, Suite C-1, 404-856-0637, browbaratlanta.com

Photograph by Deborah Whitlaw Llewellyn

Impulse: Indigo Bath & Body

Jackson Reeves — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 12:00:00 GMT

Jennifer Tice values doing things the old-fashioned way. She grew up on a northwest Pennsylvania farm and learned to make soap from her herbalist grandmother by rendering fat and estimating lye quantities. She parlayed her knowledge of how much pumpkin to use to fight oily faces and when to toss in carrots to soothe sensitive skin to create Indigo Bath & Body soaps in 2001. Working out of her Woodstock home, Tice offered consumers a line that boasted natural, locally sourced ingredients. When her fans started asking for creams, she came up with a production method that enabled the goods to last longer than six months without undermining her brand’s holistic quality. Available at farmers markets this month as they reopen shop, Indigo’s new skin care line includes green-tea facial masks and fruit-based antiaging serums. indigobathandbody.com

Photograph by Caroline Kilgore

Bestseller: Mama Soaps

Jackson Reeves — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 15:41:00 GMT

Virginia-Highland smells like lavender, patchouli dominates Little Five Points, and cinnamon darts about Candler Park. At least according to Emilie Sennebogen, founder of Mama. The Decatur-based bath and body brand introduced a quirky, neighborhood-
themed line of handmade, all-natural soaps a year and a half ago, and local retail outlets—such as Heliotrope and area Whole Foods—finally caught the whiff earlier this year. “Intown Atlanta has a lot of neighborhood pride,” explains Sennebogen. The collection currently features twelve communities, including newcomers Cabbagetown, Midtown, and Sennebogen’s own stomping grounds, a rosemary-scented East Lake. Mama, 743-D East College Avenue, Decatur, 404-377-7800, loveyourmama.com

Photograph by Ryan Hayslip

Beauty School: The Aviary

Candice Dyer — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 15:48:00 GMT

If your inner wood nymph needs some preening, find a perch at the Aviary, Atlanta’s most uncompromisingly eco-conscious spa and salon.

“It doesn’t smell like any hair salon you’ve ever been to, because all of our coloring is 100 percent free of ammonia,” says owner Amy Leavell Bransford (right). “The ingredients are certifiably organic, from small, sustainable family farms that are absolutely committed to doing the right thing for humans and the planet. I make sure of that.”

Bransford launched the Aviary, an earthy “health and beauty collective” of aestheticians, stylists, and massage therapists, this autumn at Studioplex in the Old Fourth Ward, where you can shake off the urban grit and exfoliate amid the foliage of rough-grained wood recycled from her family’s farm. The wood decorates the walls and forms a large representation of a tree to symbolize her roots in environmentalism. Hip clients, scanning her plant-based emollients and baskets of vegetables from the salon’s food co-op, observe that the apple did not fall far from the tree.

“I mean, just look at who her father is,” says radio personality Mara Davis, an Aviary regular. “He was green long before green was cool.” She is referring to Chuck Leavell, the keyboardist for the Rolling Stones and a nationally recognized arborist and conservationist. The Leavell family operates Charlane Plantation, the 2,000-acre tree farm in middle Georgia.

“My earliest memories involve riding around on a John Deere on this farm that had belonged to my great-grandmother,” Bransford says. “My dad has always believed passionately in giving back to the earth, so those ethics were part of my upbringing.”

Bransford worked awhile in the music industry as a publicist for Capricorn Records, and her tastes set the collegial tone at the Aviary, which forgoes soporific New Agey Muzak for a soundtrack of Feist, Iron and Wine, and Yael Naim. She is also a licensed aesthetician, and the Aviary’s skincare branch uses all-natural products such as Dr. Hauschka and Juice Beauty. “What’s not in the bottle is as important as what is,” she says, citing formaldehyde, toluene, and parabens as toxic additives found in even the most wholesome-sounding products. “We use nature to bring out the natural beauty a woman already possesses.”

Photo by Deborah Whitlaw Llewellyn

Test Drive: American Haircuts

Bill Addison — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 15:56:00 GMT

“Can I get you guys anything to drink?” asks the receptionist behind the desk at American Haircuts in Midtown. “Water, coffee, Coke . . . something stronger?” The other man sitting in the waiting area and I look up to eyeball the rows of bottles on the shelves, glance at each other, and smirk.

“Scotch,” says the other man.

“Bourbon, please,” I respond.

One glass of jiggling ice and Elijah Craig later (free of charge), and I’m beginning to warm to this idea of a what’s-old-is-new barbershop. Dave Alexander, Scott Brown, and Greg Martin opened their first American Haircuts shop in Roswell in 2005, with the idea of resuscitating what was best about yesteryear’s barbershops—the old-fashioned accoutrements, the hot-lather shaves, the boys-will-be-boys conversation—and bringing it into the twenty-first century with free Internet service and a cleaner vibe. The Midtown location opened on the traffic-blaring corner of Tenth and West Peachtree last November.

On a recent Tuesday evening, there’s plenty of parking, and the walk-in wait for a barber vacillates between fifteen and forty-five minutes. If you’re restless, you can experiment with sample grooming products at a stylish mirror and sink in the corner of the waiting room. Most fellows have shown up for a trim, but I’m here to try the $50 Classic Shave. I was taken with the idea of having my stubble professionally shorn, as in a scene out of a James Cagney–era black-and-white film.

Which is pretty much how it goes. Clifton, my barber for the day, ushers me into a gleaming metal chair and reclines me back farther than any airline seat will ever go. Then he drapes two layers of hot towels over my mug. Between the steam and the booze, I could have drifted off right then. The experience is blessedly free of rhetoric concerning the magical herbal properties of the products. A slick of pre-shave oil, a layer of warm shaving cream smoothed on with a brush the way my grandfather did it, another round of towels, a thicker lather of cream—and I’m ready for the razor. Clifton isn’t wielding the traditional straight razor. After much research, the owners decided that a newfangled triple-blade razor left a smoother visage.

But to tidy up a couple hard-to-reach spots, Clifton actually does reach for the straight razor. And that’s when we have a Sweeney Todd moment: The blade nicks me in several spots below my right nostril. Clifton finishes the treatment with a cold towel and pats my cheeks with some moisturizer, but I’m still bleeding. Ah, well. Jimmy Cagney would approve of a little blood—though I wouldn’t have said no to a discount. 20 Tenth Street, Suite 100, 404-407-3227, americanhaircuts.com

Illustration by Gilbert Ford

Test Drive: Flirt & Flutter Lash Loft

Ciara Walker — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 16:10:00 GMT

I don’t wear makeup—putting stuff on and washing stuff off is a bit much for me—so getting false eyelashes was a leap. But when a sparkling new eyelash salon, Flirt & Flutter Lash Loft, opened on the westside, I thought I’d give it a try.

Although they offer semipermanent ($40) and permanent ($350) lash extensions, I chose strip lashes ($14) that last up to two days. Owner Shea Evans recommended a pair popular with newbies that offers length and volume but a more natural look. The application process wasn’t painful, just a little sticky. After fifteen minutes and a $14 brow wax to “open” my eyes, I was ready for batting practice—so I thought.

Initially I kept thinking something was in my eyes, and my lids felt sticky when I’d blink. I figured it would cease after a few hours, but I found myself waking up throughout the night just to make sure my eyelids weren’t stuck together. After one restless night, I was not ready to face the day. As lovely as they looked—and my lashes really did look fuller and longer—the strips had to go.

I wasn’t prepped on how to remove them (maybe they fall off?), and I didn’t want to rip them off for fear of damaging my real lashes. After doing some homework, I learned that a little warm water and Vaseline to loosen the glue would do the trick. Once the lashes were off, I concluded that semipermanent or permanent lashes might be a better choice—just not for me. On a positive note, my eyebrows still looked clean and shapely a week later. 1016 Howell Mill Road, Loft 1208, 404-815-7967, flirtnflutterlashloft.com

Illustration by Simon Peplow

Find of the Month: HollyBeth's Natural Luxury

Elizabeth Florio — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 16:15:00 GMT

Bring a hint of spring to these dreary days with a line of all-natural home and beauty products from Decatur resident HollyBeth Anderson. Hydrate cracked knuckles with earthy Marigold & Sweet Basil hand cream, soothe chapped lips with Butterfly Lip Nectar, and invite the scent of lavender into your home with the Amor soy candle, dedicated to the memory of former Georgia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce CEO Sara Gonzalez. All products contain 100 percent certified-organic essential oils and natural ingredients. At Entebello, 324 East Paces Ferry Road, 404-477-2933; Sage Naturalceuticals, 238 Walker Street, #8, 770-881-8610; Brookhaven’s Natural Body Spa and Shoppe, 1432 Dresden Drive, 404-816-8801; and at hollybeth.net

Photograph by Caroline Kilgore

Test Drive: Vilas MedSpa

Mary Jo DiLonardo — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 16:32:00 GMT

Ever since I climbed into the HydroCapsule at Vilas MedSpa in Cumming, I’ve hated showering upright. It’s so much nicer to experience the warm mists of water and enveloping pillows of steam—designed to exfoliate, hydrate, and detoxify—while prone, ensconced in a womblike plastic spaceship.

Inside the candlelit spa, you begin by filling out a questionnaire based on the three doshas, or body/mind types, of Ayurvedic medicine: vata, pitta, and kapha. After slipping into a plush robe, you receive a cup of tea, custom-brewed based on your body’s needs. (Accompanying the tea are chocolate chip cookies, so it’s not all about cleansing. Personally, I skipped the tea and opted for Toll House.)

Next I was escorted into a private room, where my pod awaited. It was a gleaming white contraption, hinged at one end like a plastic Easter egg. I climbed aboard—no easy feat since the HydroCapsule was tall and I’m short and I happened to be au naturel at the time. Once I was safely on deck with strategically placed towels, massage therapist Kaveri Cornett lowered the lid, covering everything but my head. She tucked a towel between the top of the capsule and my neck and turned on the Vichy shower. I had climbed into paradise.

The ensuing sixty minutes were a blur. Between the sprays of the shower and the puffs of steam from below, pulsing colored lights balanced my chakras and relaxing music tinkled throughout the room. Every once in a while Kaveri would turn off the shower (boo!) to wipe me down with oil, lube me up with lotion, or exfoliate. In between, I’d slip back into the comforting uterus of the capsule, nearly drifting off each time as the shower and steam did its soothing work and she performed a deep scalp and face massage.

All too soon, the fun ended. I had to disembark from my UFO (even tougher now that I was slippery) and come back to Earth. Though the $120 price tag makes the treatment too steep to enjoy on a regular basis, it was a luxurious trip that made my skin feel incredibly soft for days. HydroCapsule Body Exfoliation, Vilas MedSpa, 5745 Clarion Street, Suite B-62, Cumming, 770-887-1901, vilasmedspa.com

Test Drive: Grooming Lounge

Justin Heckert — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 16:38:00 GMT

Sure, it’s masculine. There are tall shelves of grooming products, and the walls and floors are dark wood. There’s a sleek leather chair in the corner where you can get your shoes shined. There are plenty of magazines, in case you’re one of the dwindling number of American men who read to pass the time—Fortune, GQ, The Economist, Maxim (probably doesn’t count), and a bunch of sports rags in a room with couches and a plasma TV. They have Muzak and burly cans of shaving gel. You can get a shot of bourbon if you want one. In the event you second-guess yourself—you’re walking toward one of the back rooms with the comfy, elevated beds and the steam machines and you’re thinking a spa treatment isn’t completely manly—you will pass reassuring framed pictures of the Fonz and Steve McQueen and (curiously) golfer Bobby Jones.

I recently received the Cleansing Face Treatment at the Grooming Lounge, a men’s spa on the bottom floor of Terminus, a new skyscraper that’s a progeny of all that infuriating construction in Buckhead. Though a pleasant and laid-back environ, it offered nothing much different from the other three Atlanta men’s spas I’ve been to. They all must adhere to the writ-in-stone list of the five things that make men feel like men—you know, liquor, dark floors, shoe-shine chairs, the color black, and old-time barber’s razors.

Grooming Lounge services bear macho monikers such as “The Commander in Chief” (manicure and foot treatment), “The Second Term” (massage and facial), “The Congressman” (shave, massage, manicure, pedicure), “The Hill” (facial and massage), and “The Supreme Court” (pretty much everything)—but those were out of my budget, and I had to settle for something more small-town mayoral. For an hour, my pores were extracted. My face was massaged with a variety of cool and good-smelling creams. All that steam was nice, too. Afterward I was handed a suggested regimen of the spa’s official face-maintenance products, written on a white slip of paper like prescriptions for medicine. But I wasn’t man enough to buy any of them. Grooming Lounge, 3280 Peachtree Road, Suite 120, 404-467-7766, groominglounge.com