Beauty Basics brings one-stop shop together

Bu Sue Tiffin

 

When
Amy Joanu speaks about her vision, her business and the upcoming grand
opening of her one-stop beauty shop, her energy is palpable.

 

Joanu
has needed that energy to build her aesthetic services business from the
ground up, beginning about four years ago in the basement of her house.
At around that time she had experience at local businesses as an
aesthetician, but said that she wanted something different.
“My
daughter was in daycare, I was like, I knew this wasn’t for me,” she
said. “I wanted to be raising my daughter and eating my cake and doing
everything.”
With the support of her husband, she invested the couple’s savings and enrolled in microblading courses.
“I
just went for it and I ended up loving it,” she said. “I had so much
support from people trusting me with this blade, doing their eyebrows.
Four years later, I’m so thankful they did because I wouldn’t be where I
[am] without the support of people trying me.”

 

To offer her services
while also being able to care for her children, Joanu renovated a room
in her basement, which took just four days. Then another, to accommodate
pedicure services. And then another, also incorporating a waiting room,
bathroom and a playroom, bringing other women in too, to offer
everything from shellac manicures to eyelash extensions and teeth
whitening.
“This was all in my basement,” she laughed. “My husband
was on board with everything every step of the way. Every time I came up
with a new idea or I wanted to take another course, he said, babe, just
go for it. Just do it.”
Joanu said she wanted to offer a welcoming, open space for clients, a one-stop beauty service spot.
“That
was my vision,” she said. “I just wanted a one-stop beauty spot where
you could get anything done. It was a quick service, inexpensive but
still great quality and still a place where you never felt uncomfortable
or you were feeling judged.”

 

Besides offering an espresso machine
for clients to have an unrushed coffee, Joanu said kids have been
welcome as well to offer moms the freedom to get services while not
having to find childcare to do so.
“My biggest thing is, while I’m
doing these services, you are more than welcome to bring your kids,” she
said. “This is a safe place. This isn’t a spa where kids or cell phones
are frowned upon, this is a place where you come, as you are. For any
mom that thinks they aren’t able to get out for an hour, come. Get your
butt over here, come, feel like a princess for 20 minutes, half an
hour.”

 

Joanu has loved seeing the change in her clients as they receive services.
“You’re
getting the quick things that are just those small little wins for a
mom, a wife, a girlfriend, a friend, a person,” she said. “For me, it
was having a safe zone where you come in feeling down, you get a quick
brow wax, you get your nails done, and the energy of that person that
changed is what did it for me. I thought yep, this is what I wanted to
do.”

 

For Joanu, an interest in the beauty industry began when she was
in elementary school. She moved to the area from Richmond Hill in 2002,
and said she was already plucking her eyebrows and wearing makeup in
Grade 6. She shared those skills with her friends, which caused a few
phone calls from their moms to her own, in part because pencil thin
brows were popular at the time, she noted with a laugh. Joanu did her
friends makeup at Grade 8 graduation, and then in Grade 12. Despite
studying law at college, her passion for beauty initiated a small
business she ran with Kristen Rowden – K & A Makeup and Hair Design,
traveling to offer makeup and hair at weddings.
“We were so busy right away,” she said.

 

After
her daughter was born, she began taking night classes offered in
Barrie, Peterborough and Toronto and now just a few years later, is
seeing her five-year plan come to fruition in four years with the
opening of Beauty Basics by Amy in the building previously occupied by
Ommmh Beauty Boutique (Ommmh Beauty Boutique has moved to 8 Milne
Street, where EAT! was previously located).
“My dreams are always
getting bigger,” she said. “It’s not just being comfortable. I could
live at my house and be so comfortable doing what I’m doing, make good
money, but it’s way more than that. I want more, I want the town to have
more, I want everything to be more, and I feel like doing it in my
house is keeping it very comfortable and sheltered and is not giving it
that extra vision that I had.”

 

Joanu invited talented women also
working as entrepreneurs to join her team: Sheri Meyer, Dawn Macklam,,
Julie Windrum, and Jennifer Emmerson, encouraging them to pursue their
own goals.
“My vision was more than what was just in my basement,”
she said. “I want more services, I want more girls on my team, I don’t
want it just being Beauty Basics by Amy, I want it to be Beauty Basics
by all of these women that are having the same vision that I’m having,
that want to do the same things that I’m doing.”

 

The team will offer
services that include mani-pedis, bridal makeup, eyelash lifts and
extensions, full body waxing, permanent and semi brows, Botox, fillers,
laser hair removal and cosmetic teeth whitening.

 

“I just feel like if you have this tribe of talented, exceptional women, how can you go wrong?” she said.
Beauty
Basics by Amy is located at 136 Bobcaygeon Road and welcomes the public
to their grand opening on Feb. 1 from 12 to 4 p.m. For further
information visit Amy’s Makeup Design & Aesthetics on Facebook,
@beautybasics_byamy on Instagram or by phone at 705-286-0000.