A vacation is not complete without booking a trip to the beauty salon. If you’re traveling to New Orleans for the 30th ESSENCE Festival of Culture, taking time to unwind in between the Beautycon stage panels, Janet Jackson’s headlining performance, and back-to-back events can make the jam-packed schedule easier to manage. And whether you’re visiting the hair salon to touch-up your ‘do or a local spa for facials and even Botox, supporting Black businesses during the festival is a must!
Below, here’s a guide to five local beauty salons to visit during your 2024 ESSENCE Festival vacation.
Freedom Apothecary is a holistic wellness destination offering both products and facial services. Located on Magazine Street in NOLA, the apothecary was founded by Morrisa Jenkins and Bonkosi Horn with the intention of providing a space for radical self-care. To support this, they house a collection of women and BIPOC-owned beauty and wellness brands including Manasi 7, Maude, and Ere Perez, as well as a line of in-house products to complement their facial massages.
If you’re in search of a more heavy-hitting beauty appointment (think: microneedling, dermal fillers and lymphatic massages), Kyur Aesthetics is the city’s first medical aesthetics practice to offer non invasive, nonsurgical procedures. Led by board-certified aesthetics medical provider Dr. Carlnetta Rabb, take a few hours out of your festival for a tweakment at Kyur’s luxury medspa. Other than postoperative therapy, the spa also offers dermaplaning, chemical peels and multi-step skin treatments.
Just a call away, Baby Bangz is a hair salon specializing in natural textures. The owner, Anastasia Ebel, grew up in a household full of holistic medicine, learning how to use herbs and remedies which is now the foundation of her haircare line. Amid the hair relaxer lawsuits, Ebel teaches her clients how to take care of their natural texture, helping to heal our community from texturism through hair techniques, effective products, and self-love.
Thuy Dang and Khoa Tran co-founded Blanc Beauty Bar as a full-service beauty salon offering mani-pedis, waxes and hair care. My personal favorite nail salon in New Orleans, Blanc has a clean aesthetic, honed through cavernous white brick walls, an open floor plan and elegant black chairs, as well as complimentary champagne during the service. Located on Magazine Street, the salon has a convenient location for a quick, last minute nail or wax appointment.
Licensed esthetician and acne expert Donica Johns (aka the “natural mixologist”) founded the Botanical Nail and Skin Studio as a holistic skincare destination. Specializing in custom facial treatments and sugaring hair removal, she works with a team of Black estheticians and massage therapists offering services from body contouring and brow tinting, to Egyptian sugaring and microneedling. Their intimate spa in New Orleans allows all the room to heal your body inside and out.
