Beauty businesses offering DIY grooming kits, tutorials to help clients through pandemic

HOUSTON – As hair and nail salons in Houston remain closed people are starting to taking grooming into their own hands. Some local business owners are using it as an opportunity to get creative with bringing in revenue.

Madeline Pena struggles with adult acne, which has only gotten worse through the pandemic. She shared a series of videos on social media expression her gratitude to her esthetician for quickly mailing her a kit to help with her skincare concerns.

“Ya’ll it has been rough not being able to go see Trish or get my monthly facials,” she said in the video. “So I reached out to her and sent a massive May Day.”

Pena’s esthetician’s office, like many grooming businesses across Texas, is currently closed due to the stay at home order.

“I’m getting married in August so we’ve been prepping my skin,” Pena said. “I’ve been on this regiment, I’ve been eating right, taking care of my skin and then all of a sudden when this pandemic broke out I’m like ‘oh no, what do I do?’”

Pena reached out to her esthetician, Trisha Mcgee, with SKN Houston for help.

“She said Madeline absolutely. I have this mask that I’m going to send you and she did. It was here in like two days which was perfect,” Pena said.

McGee, who specializes in custom facials, has been doing virtual consultations and offering customized facial kits while her doors are closed. She said stress and cloth face masks have been taking a toll on her client’s skin.

“I have such great clients and they’re so supportive of our business during this closure and I can’t wait to get back and see everyone in the office,” the skin expert said. “But until then I’m at least trying to keep their skin in good condition during this pandemic and stay at home orders.”

Crystal Holmes-Montgomery, owner of Ilashalot Studio Studio, hasn’t been able to practice what she calls her “brow ministry” in weeks. She specializes in microblading, brow grooming and lash extensions. Staying at home has allowed her to start something she’s always wanted to do but couldn’t find the time.

“A lot of my clients are still working and they have Zoom conferences and so how they look is very important and so I came up with the do it yourself quarantine brow kit,” she said.

Holmes-Montgomery said the kits were an instant hit.

“I posted it and within like two hours I had sold out like 100 kits,” she said.

Each kit also comes with a thank you note written by her children. It helps them stay busy too.

“It says thank you for supporting my mom’s business and that pretty much just kind of tugged at my heart,” Holmes-Montgomery said. “These times just don’t affect the adults. This is how we provide for our children. And when we’re not working, it’s not just us affected. It’s a whole household.”

Along with the kit, she’s offering one-on-one virtual calls and tutorial videos to help walk her clients though what to do. She said since the quarantine brow kits have been selling so well she may sell them full-time.