Business of the Week: The Lash Loft Beauty Bar, Mahopac
LIZ PENKER PHOTO
By Tiffany Jansen
Just last month, The Lash Loft Beauty Bar opened in Mahopac. As you’d expect, the beauty salon is located upstairs and specializes in Xtreme eyelash extensions – in fact, it’s the only place in the area where you can get them.
“It’s been so nice to see old friends again and to make new ones,” Denise Rynkiewicz says of her salon’s official opening. Denise has only just recently returned to the beauty scene after a two year hiatus. “I’ve really missed this.”
The daughter of a hairdresser and a colorist, Denise began working at Hairquarters, her father’s salon, at age 15. After college, Denise spent some time traveling abroad before returning to Mahopac to open her own salon with her sister Dawn; the aptly named Hairquarters II.
Denise went on to start Lasting Impressions, which provided touchless makeup for weddings and other special occasions. Her skills with airbrush makeup earned her rave reviews on WeddingWire.com, the wedding destination site.
Then a severe case of carpal tunnel ground Denise to a halt. Corrective surgery was followed by two years in recovery. But it wasn’t enough to keep the beautician from bouncing back into doing what she loves: making people look and feel great.
The Lash Loft Beauty Bar offers everything you’d expect from a beauty salon – facials, nail care, makeup and a number of things you might not. A certified tattoo artist with fifteen years’ experience, Denise also does permanent make-up and other cosmetic tattooing.
“A friend’s 86-year-old mother came in once to have her eyebrows done and just last week, I tattooed bottom liner for a 78-year-old woman,” says Denise. “I’ve done beauty marks on women in their 30s and eyebrows for girls in their 20s. For men, you can do eyelash enhancement and fill in hair on the scalp.”
Denise also provides areola restoration and 3D nipple tattooing for breast cancer survivors. She’s the preferred tattoo artist for the Dyson Center for Cancer Care in Poughkeepsie and continues to get referrals from plastic surgeons with survivor patients.
“I give them their final touch and put a smile back on their faces,” Denise says of these remarkable women.
Brides, prom queens, debutants, and party-goers can head to The Lash Loft for airbrush makeup, which, Denise gushes, will last all day – smudge free. And, with Halloween approaching, she’s already beginning to see an influx of would-be vampires, kewpie dolls, zombies, and felines in search of the perfect holiday makeup.
For clients after a full head-to-toe makeover, a quick trip downstairs to Salon Amore (where Denise’s sister Dawn works as a hairdresser) will set them up with anything else they need for their special day.
“I don’t like to be bored, so anything new, I’m on top of it and I want to bring it to my customers and to Mahopac,” Denise says of her eclectic array of services. “We keep abreast of all the latest technologies.”
Besides being the only one around providing Xtreme eyelash extensions, Denise was one of the first beauty technicians in the area to offer SNS nail care, the healthier, calcium-enriched, no-UV-light-necessary alternative to acrylics.
Add to that Denise’s decades of experience in the beauty industry, and it’s only fitting that The Lash Loft’s motto is “old school knowledge with new school technology.”
The Lash Loft Beauty Bar is located at 559 Route 6 in Mahopac. For more information, visit The Lash Loft on Facebook or call Denise at 914-204-2590
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