Women In Beauty

WOMEN IN Beauty By Carly Meyers

The Suwannee Valley is blessed with many strong women in businesses who enhance our quality of life in North Central Florida! We are thankful for the personal and economic impact they all provide to our home!

In this edition of Family, we wanted to take an opportunity to highlight a couple of new budding female entrepreneurs. The Gel Room and Euphoria Beauty Co. have chosen to grow the business spectrum of our community and apply their trades for the benefit of their neighbors.

EUPHORIA BEAUTY CO.

Euphoria Beauty Co. is a small business created by two sisters, Lai Stebbins and Kia Brown, based in Lake City. Euphoria specializes in lash extensions, massage, waxing, brow services, makeup and skincare. Now a successful business with packed schedules, Euphoria grew from humble beginnings.

Lai and Kia always knew they wanted to open a business together, they were just unsure what. The original plan was to open a boutique until Lai decided to go to school for her esthetician license. At the time, Kia was a stay-at-home mom and decided to join Lai since the classes were at night. They quickly realized they had discovered a passion they both loved. “We’ve always been into art together. Every different style of art one of us has done, we’ve always gotten the other one into it,” Kia says. “Lashes have been no different.”

The skill they found the most interesting was lash extensions. They began to practice on each other and their mom to refine their skillsets. “At first it was difficult. I wasn’t sure if I would be able to do it. But overtime, it started to come much easier,” Kia says.

The sisters began to grow their clientele for lash extensions and eventually decided to rent a room in Glo Tanning in Lake City to work from. They liked the space and could both fit their own bed for lash extension clients while being closer to the majority of their customers.

Later, they added brow services to their menu. After a year of working from Glo Tanning, they decided it was time to start working toward their original goal of owning a small business together.

In Fall of 2021, Lai and Kia began to look for a space of their own. They eventually found a suite off State Road 247, though it needed a lot of construction. After much deliberation, the sisters decided that even though the suite required a lot of work, this was their opportunity to make the space exactly how they had dreamt it.

The sisters’ vision for Euphoria was to expand upon lash and brow services. They hired a massage therapist and added a boutique section for a local vendor to sell her products. In the spring, they plan to off er their own educational courses for lash and beauty services, as well as off er internships to those wanting to learn and grow in the beauty industry. “It’s important to be supportive of other women and mean it,” Lai says. “Not only can we support women in our community by off ering services that help boost their self-confi dence, but by sharing our skillsets to empower other women to join the beauty industry, too.”

The sisters’ dreams of owning a business together have otherwise been smooth sailing. “Usually, people say not to work with family, but surprisingly we never disagree,” says Kia. “I could never work with anyone besides my sister,” Lai says. She continued, “We feel like we are a yin-yang situation. Kia is an introvert and I’m an extrovert. We balance each other out so well and help one another grow in the industry.”

“Euphoria means a feeling of intense excitement or happiness. We chose the name Euphoria because we want our clients to feel the highest euphoria about themselves,” Lai says. “Euphoria is the perfect combination of Kia and me. It’s the perfect vison of us, and we did it together.”

Euphoria Beauty Co. is now open and located at 757 SW SR-247, Suite 107B in Lake City. To book an appointment, contact Lai and Kia online at the Euphoria Beauty Co. Facebook or Instagram page.

THE GEL ROOM

Meet Sam Pasternak, owner of the Gel Room in Lake City. A business that originally started as a new way to challenge herself has quickly blossomed into an opportunity that is outgrowing its space, and quickly.

Sam has been a Lake City resident since she was 5 years old. She started her associate degree right out of high school with no idea of her intended path. Aside from school, she worked at Sugar Cakery creating custom cakes and cupcakes. Since her ultimate goal was unknown at the time, she decided to attend cosmetology school in the meantime. She worked as a hair stylist for a short period and decided it wasn’t her passion.

While fi nishing her associate degree, she also obtained her real estate license in 2017 and pursued the career while staying home with her son, Iverson, until early 2021. Feeling a bit uninspired, Sam decided to try her hand at nails after seeing many new trends. She wanted to oversee her own schedule and decided to take advantage of her cosmetology degree. She started practicing custom nails on her friends in her old pottery studio. The room jokingly became nicknamed ‘the Gel Room’, and Sam’s work began to spread farther than the pottery studio’s walls.

Sam aims to off er a diff erent level of nail service. “I want to set myself apart from other salons with not only the products I use, but my artwork and operate in a diff erent tier,” Sam says. She prefers to use gel products over acrylic or dip powders off ered by most salons. Sam has tried both acrylic and dip in the past, but steers away from them for various reasons. “I think a big part of other salons is speed. When was the last time you had your cuticle prepped at a salon?” Sam asks. “My favorite part of the service is prep, and I want to off er my clients a service that lasts, without jeopardizing the integrity of the natural nail.”

Sam’s artwork spread, and with inquiries pouring in, she got her own suite and gave it the name the Gel Room. In just six months, Sam cannot keep up with the amount of clientele herself. “My clients are the ones who grew my client base this quickly,” Sam says. “I’m just lucky that people carry my work on themselves, and when others see it, it just helps me more. They wear it everywhere, but if someone says they like their nails, it’s a compliment to my work and I love that.”

Though Sam is experiencing growing pains, she views it as problems she’s blessed to have. She has already put in motion plans to open a salon of her own in January of 2022 in Lake City. Once the salon and her newly hired staff is ready, she will open her books again to clients. “I would love to off er my clients both a cozy, close-knit environment like before, but still be able to include the comradery and environment that could accommodate clients coming with friends,” Sam says.

Sam also notes that she could not have gotten to this point without the love and support of her husband, Adam. He has not only worked hand-in-hand with Sam to get her new salon up and running, but would recruit his coworkers at Lake City Medical Center as nail clients to support Sam in any way he could. Though Adam, an RN, is not nail savvy, he would explain the pros of builder gel to the nurses and suggest they pay Sam a visit.

Looking to the future, Sam says she wouldn’t mind taking a step back from the business to educate others in the fi eld once she has a team that shares the same vison, dream and passion for the business standing behind her. For now, Sam is happy to have found a path that continues to challenge her every day. “It’s a lot to keep up with your own business; it’s all on you,” Sam says. “But I have always wanted to work for myself and be an entrepreneur. There’s no better investment than yourself. It’s hard work, but so rewarding. If you empower others, they’ll lift you up and empower you as well.”

For updates on the Gel Room’s new salon and noti cations on scheduling,

follow Sam on Instagram at thegelroom_sam. ■