miami blow-dry bars capitalize on looking good

Blow-dry bars just hit Miami, bringing a new grooming craze and offering “catwalk quality” wash and dries for $35. /* *

Taming your tresses with a salon-style wash and blow dry just got a lot easier.Blo Midtown and Blo Brickell, two new blow-dry bars, have opened in recent weeks, bringing the latest luxury grooming craze to Miami.

Their mantra is “No cuts, no color.” For $35, the bars offer “catwalk quality” blow-outs in various styles in less than an hour. They welcome walk-ins and appointments seven days a week, and are open as early as 7 a.m. and as late as 9 p.m., depending on the day.

“It’s amazing for the Miami market, because Miami is so full of events, and everyone is doing something all the time, so it’s the perfect place to have a blow-dry bar,” said Kailey Magder, 29, a franchise partner with her sister Sandirose, of Blo Midtown. They have a development deal to open five more locations in Miami-Dade within three years.

The bars are designed in hot pink, white and silver gray, each with the same kitschy menu of services, and seven styles, like “holly would,” “sex, hugs and rock & roll,” “executive sweet” and “red carpet.”

Working professionals come in early in the morning before heading to meetings or presentations. At lunchtime, mothers with strollers arrive for pampering. “And toward the end of the day, it’s the happy hour crowd, the ‘I just finished yoga and I’m sweaty’ crowd, the ‘going out for drinks’ or ‘I have a first date,’ crowd,” said Fatima Lalani, 29, who owns Blo Brickell.

Erenia Moya, 29, made her third visit to Blo Brickell recently, this time just before a holiday party. “I love it,” she said as she headed out the door, her hair styled with a curling iron. Does it look better than if she did it herself? “Much better, much better,” she said.

Both Miami locations are separate franchises of Toronto-based Blo Blow Dry Bar, which opened its first bar in Vancouver in 2007 and now has 18 locations, mostly in Canada, with five so far in the United States. Besides Miami, Blo bars have opened in San Francisco and West Hollywood, Calif., and Austin, Texas. Another is scheduled to open in West Hartford, Conn., in early 2012.

“We’re just getting started in the United States,” said Blo Blow Dry Bar Chief Operating Officer Paul Spindler, who said the company hopes to open another 10 to 20 franchises in the U.S. in the coming year.

For franchisees, the total cost to open is about $225,000, he said, including a $25,000 franchise fee. The company also charges a 6 percent royalty fee on sales.The key to opening a location, Spindler said, is finding the right downtown or midtown spot.

“It’s more about urban locations, with vertical density, a wonderful mix of residential and commercial, and access to working women and stay-at- home moms,” Spindler said, “and with visibility and lots of traffic.”

Another blow dry bar company, Newport Beach, Calif.-based Drybar, has a similar concept, with more than a dozen locations in the United States but none in Florida.

The Magder sisters and Lalani are all originally from the Toronto area and experienced Blo first hand. The Magders got the idea for their business when Kailey, who has a background in fashion, walked into a Blo bar in Toronto on her way to a job interview, and “fell in love with it,” she said. Her sister, who was already in Miami running her own bankruptcy and insolvency consulting business, thought it was a great idea.

"We get it. We’re clients. We understand the business,” said Sandirose, 35, adding that she hates to dry her own hair, which is long and thick. The sisters signed the development deal about a year ago, and now Kailey runs the day-to-day operations of the bar, which opened in early December, and Sandirose handles the financial and accounting side of the business. She is hoping to average 1,000 blow-outs a month.

“We love the neighborhood,” said Kailey, who also lives in Midtown Miami. “It’s so up and coming and there is so much happening here.”

Similarly, Lalani, who opened Blo Brickell in November, was a customer in Toronto before deciding to start her own franchise in Miami. Her family owns several restaurant franchises in Canada, and though she worked in financial services there, she had always wanted to open her own business.

As a frequent winter vacationer to Miami, she chose the Brickell area.“The clientele is the right clientele for Blo,” she said. “For $35, clients on Brickell can sneeze that off. They spend more on happy hour.

”The blow dry bars market themselves not as an alternative to salons but as an add-on. They don’t want customers to feel like they are “cheating” on their regular hair stylists. Instead, they say they offer a blow-out in between cuts and color.

“It’s an affordable luxury and lasts longer than when you do it yourself,” Kailey said. “It makes you happy and puts a smile on your face.”

In addition to blow drying, the bars offer private styling parties and will go offsite to do styling for weddings and special events. Blow dries for men and little girls, cost $21

.“I love it,” said Yami Delgado, as she paid for her pre-dinner party blow dry in Midtown, near the law firm where she works as a paralegal. She said she’s also a customer at Blo Brickell, close to her home. “This is the best concept ever,” Delgado said. “It’s very convenient, and it’s fast service, so you don’t waste time — especially when you have two children and work full-time.”

If you go:

• Blo Brickell 900 S. Miami Ave., Unit 129, Miami; 305-374-2565.
• Blo Midtown 3301 NE 1st Ave., Suite 102, Miami, 786-373-5256

By Ina Paiva Cordle, MiamiHerald.com, December 27, 2011

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