March 28, 2024

FLINT TOWNSHIP, MI — A new beauty salon and spa recently opened in the Flint area with a range of services and the experience to care for different hair textures.

The LaTresha Rená Salon and Spa, 1032 S. Linden Road, Suite B, in Flint Township celebrated a grand opening in late November.

It took a long journey to be able to have the celebration because of challenges tied to the COVID-19 pandemic that mandated certain businesses to close and the strict guidelines that followed after.

Salon and spa owner LaTresha Reed told MLive-The Flint Journal that the business offers a full line of care between hair, skin and nails.

“I wanted it to be a pretty much one-stop shop so that whatever person needed they wouldn’t have to go to multiple locations to be able to be serviced in that way,” Reed said.

Customers with varying hair types can get hair care services such as hair extensions including tape-ins, micro links, micro beads, sew-ins, braid less sew-ins, wigs and customizations.

“From the kinkiest of the curls from straight as it can be, we can do everything in between,” said Reed of the range of experience in styling different hair textures.

Nail services include manicures, pedicures, paraffin wax, gel nails as a substitute to acrylics and acrylic nails.

The skin care offerings range from customizable facials, microblading, eyebrow tinting, waxing, lash and brow lamination and Cryoskin.

Cryoskin is a service that uses technology to reduce fat cells and tone and tighten skin on the face and body.

Services range in price from a $10 paraffin wax treatment to the body contouring service at $2,750.

Reed has decorated the space to bring feelings of joy and relaxation with inspirational messages, as well as black, white and gold accents and greenery.

“The customer should always feel like it’s Disney World every time they come in and they’re a celebrity,” Reed said. “Not only is it a relaxing atmosphere, but it brings a lot of joy.”

The business takes clients by appointments only.

“It does have a very luxurious feel and oftentimes I will hear from the clientele that it doesn’t look like it should be here,” Reed said. “It looks like it should be in New York or Chicago somewhere. They’re able to come in and have that sense of spa-cation when they walk through the door.”

Reed, a licensed cosmetologist, signed the lease for the space of her business in February 2020 near the start of the pandemic, which impacted the progress of projects within the space as well as the timeline to open.

The businesswoman took matters into her own hands as she learned how to lay flooring, build her own desk and paint among several other tasks.

Some family, including her father, helped out too.

“I just didn’t want that by the time things were able to open back up that I would be starting the process over again with bids, because their prices might have changed or anything else,” Reed said. “So I had to be that person. I had to do it all.”

Despite the obstacles Reed faced in the process of reaching her goal, she overcame them and officially opened in October 2020.

However, plans for a grand opening were initially put to the side because Reed thought the momentum of new business just wasn’t there anymore.

But her thoughts changed.

“Everything about this pandemic has not been anything that’s normal, so why wouldn’t I still have my grand opening,” Reed explained. “I put all this work into this building as well as building a customer experience and the employees too as well. So I was like the business deserves it.”

Within her business, Reed has a mission to not only serve her clients, but also fill a gap within the beauty industry as it pertains to beauty professionals

“Every other establishment is more career oriented versus when it comes to the beauty industry it’s just like you’re a hairstylist, an esthetician, but it’s because no one ever took the time to care about our peers to say let me build something for us, let me build this into a career,” Reed said. “Let it be that they can be on salary, let it be that they can have a 401K, that they can have a retirement plan, that there’s all these different things.”

Reed plans to bridge the gap of opportunities that are traditionally offered in other industries.

“What happens if there was a company that took the time to bring them up to other industries that we can raise that morale that would then increase the customer experience, which then would increase the morale when it comes to the average beauty professional, which then would increase their service and everything would impact each other, ultimately impacting the economy for an individual, a city and the beauty industry in general,” Reed asked.

The hours of operation for the business are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday.

To learn more about the business or to schedule an appointment for a service, visit here.

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