What year did your business start?
I opened the salon in July 19, 2015.
Where are you located?
Hair Therapy Concept is located at 19585 State Road 7 in the Boca Greens Plaza next to Stella’s Pizzeria and KPB Pharmacy.
How and why did you get into the business?
All my life, I never had a professional haircut. My father cut my hair but it was like a bowl hair cut so I decided at the age of 13 to cut my own hair. During high school I mastered cutting my own hair and then I started to cut all my friends’ hair. My name started getting around the school that I only charged $5 for a hair cut. I only did hair cuts from spring to fall because I lived in Boston and it was too cold outside. There were days when I did 10 haircuts but forgot to eat or drink. I never felt tired or bored.
After high school, I went straight to cosmetology school. I knew this would be my hobby and something that I could do and love for a long period. I thought I would just figure out what I wanted to do in life but I found everything else boring. Since I already knew how to do a man’s hair cut, I decided to go to school to learn more about womens’ hair cuts.
What is your educational background and how were you trained?
I finished school and got my cosmetology license. I began working for 6 different salons including JC Penney. It was exciting but overwhelming when I got my own chair. I built up a clientele but I felt there was something missing so I decided to look for a job with one of the best salons in Bosoton. I got a job at Avanti, a high end salon and was trained on hair cutting, blow drying, color application and styling hair.
I met my most powerful teacher at Avanti. Ines taught me a new amazing technique called dry cutting. When she saw I was talented, she offered me a job under her in a new salon. I also traveled to Vietnam to train under the most well-known stylist in the city. I worked for Ines and Cruz at Debu Salon and Day Spa for 2 years before I decided to open my own salon. While I owned Europa, I won #1 and #2 two at the Worcester Hair competition two years in a row. I decided to move to Florida shortly after.
Are you known for anything special?
People know me for my cut/color and my specialty, dry hair cutting. When you cut hair dry, you can see the way the hair grows, the weight in the layer and the way the hair falls. You can cut out the most split ends.
What services do you offer?
Hair cuts, blow drys and styling, coloring, chemical treatments and waxing. We offer hair cuts to men, women and children.
What hours are you open?
We are open from 9:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday.
Do you support any community groups?
We don’t support any specific organization but we give free services to people who are involved in non-profit work and help all charities.
What do you love most about the business?
I love to make people feel great about themselves. I believe when you look pretty or handsome, you have unlimited confidence. I think confidence is very important in everyone’s life. I love to educate my clients about their own hair; what type they have, what I can do with it, the best way to wear it and how to handle their hair on a daily basis. Not every hair cut is for everyone and not every color looks good on everyone. I love the creative, trendy life styles and it makes me very happy when I see my client dancing their way out of my salon.
What do your think is your biggest challenge with the business?
Communication! When it comes to hair, it has its own language. People have their own language and own understanding. If you are not clear what the customer really wants, you will be wrong. For example, if someone says “I want a lot of layer around my face to me it meant that they only want angles around the face, not layer. Sometimes the customer says I want my hair red but not too red, I like it light but not too light. So you have to really try to understand or show them the exact shade of color by picture.
Managing the client’s expectations is a challenge. A customer may bring a picture of a person with hair they like but that person has a totally different type of hair. You have to be honest that not everyone can have what they want or that the style is not good for the health of their hair. If you don’t understand a client they sometimes get frustrated. If we can’t communicate, I may ask them to come back another day. But I would rather have no business than bad business.
What do you want the community to know about you?
I want the community to know that we are honest, fun, friendly, talented and creative stylists. Our goal and mission is to help anyone to feel the best about their hair style and color.
Category: Business
Trump Announces Trump Sandalfoot
Donald Trump’s main holding company, The Trump Organization, LLC, announced yesterday that it will open the Trump Sandalfoot Golf Resort and Casino in West Boca. The company has purchased all the properties in West Sandalfoot, aka Watergate Estates.
The area comprises approximately 150 acres of land. The golf course is expected to take up 100 acres with a hotel and casino to occupy the remaining 50 acres.
Often Trump pays substantial sums for existing resorts, such as the $150M he paid for Doral, and then improves them. In this case he was able to acquire the various properties for significantly less, reportedly $150.
Also, Trump developments often face significant hurdles from local government, as he did in Mar-a-Lago. But with Sandalfoot it appears Palm Beach County is letting him do whatever he wants. West Boca’s county commissioner, Mary Lou Berger, said it was an easy call: “We did a survey and 85% of area residents preferred a landfill to the existing use. So a golf club is huge!”
The biggest hurdle Trump faced was a hold-out resident who did not want to sell. But he was able to win the man over after a conversation.
“I’m a great negotiator,” Trump said, “but in this case it was easy. We saw eye to eye on a lot of issues, especially social issues. So we found a way to include him on our team in a role that fits what we do. It’ll be great. I promise you. Believe me.”
Trump Sandalfoot is expected to open a year from now, on April 1, 2017. A rumored expansion into Palmetto Pines was nixed by Trump. “It doesn’t have the same cachet.”
Mission Bay Update: LA Fitness, Dick's Sporting Goods, Rotelli's, etc.
We previously reported that Toys R Us in Mission Bay would close, to be replaced by Dick’s Sporting Goods.
The Toys R Us demolition is well under way, as can be seen in a video we shot recently:
It’s a popular plaza. We generally see a high volume of people and cars. At the north end Fresh Market pulls in a substantial flow. Toys R Us was something of a draw in the middle, but the store seemed dated. Dick’s will probably bring in even more. On the south side the fountain area seems to pull a lot of people in, especially the LA Fitness gym and Panera Bread.
We’ve heard several reports from readers that the plaza is raising rents. Considering the volume this plaza pulls in, that probably makes sense. This has led to some changes.
Yesterday we learned that Rotelli’s will be leaving in early May, moving to the West Boca Square plaza near Hobby Lobby. That’s a tough move. We’ve seen at least three pizza places fail in that location and we’re told it was a Rotelli’s before that. Rotelli’s management tells us they expect to close in Mission Bay at the beginning of May and reopen in West Boca Square within a few days.
In that same fountain area we saw a sign for an Indian restaurant coming in, Boca Indian Grill. We have been whining about the need for an Indian restaurant in West Boca for a few years now and we are hoping it will be good.
We mentioned back in November that a new Asian grill is also coming to Mission Bay. We looked in a couple days ago and it looks like they aren’t close to opening yet.
Several readers have mentioned talk that LA Fitness would open a new entrance facing the parking lot (between Panera and Toys R Us). We think that’s true. We were looking on the property owner’s website and found an updated site plan that expands LA Fitness to take over a few storefronts:
That plan is dated January 11, 2016, before Toys R Us had closed. We will keep watching for an update. We notice that a few storefronts in front of Toys R Us show as “vacant” which suggests that space will be added to the new Dick’s Sporting Goods. If Dick’s does set up a store there then they will sell the usual sports equipment and clothing which will get you ready for anything from Tennis Lessons to football practice.
Doctor Arrested in Allianz Holocaust Protest
Boca Raton Police arrested Dr. Jay Lieberman for trespassing, arising out of a protest related to the Holocaust. Lieberman is a Margate podiatrist who lives in Parkland. His wife Genie is a director of the Gloria Drummond Rehabilitation Institute at Boca Raton Regional Hospital.
Medium.com reports (we have confirmed some details but not all) that Mrs. Lieberman’s late father was Holocaust survivor Ivar Segalowitz. He was unable to pursue his claims against Allianz. He was 11 years old when his family was deported to a concentration camp, leaving him unable to even determine if his family was covered by a policy. However, he said then that his family lived a typical upper middle class lifestyle and he was certain that members of his extended family or parents would’ve carried such insurance.
Mr. Segalowitz succumbed to cancer in 2014 having never received information from Allianz. Dr. Lieberman also lost family members in the Holocaust, killed at the Treblinka concentration camp.
Dr. Lieberman’s arrest was captured in a photo:
And his mugshot is available on the Sheriff’s blotter:
It’s unclear why his glasses were removed for the mugshot, but it may be standard practice.
The protesters claim Allianz has not done enough to resolve claims from Jews who had insurance policies with them before the war, and assert the company owes $2.5 billion to survivors. You can read more about the issue in a recent article in the Sun-Sentinel.
We reached out to Allianz for comment but they did not respond. We also reached out to Congressman Ted Deutch (D-West Boca), who has supported Holocaust survivor issues, but his office did not respond either.
Genie Lieberman’s 2014 prepared statement to Deutch’s congressional subcommittee is below:
[gview file=”https://westbocanews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/HHRG-113-FA13-Wstate-LiebermanE-20140918.pdf”]
Why We Like Mathnasium
We have been fans of Mathnasium for four years now. The results are outstanding. We’ve seen kids who were struggling at their grade level of math improved to perform very well at two grade levels ahead. We wrote about the West Boca Mathnasium’s opening last year.
A lot of parents go to math tutoring for homework help or test prep. Mathnasium does that, and does it just as well as anyone else. But Mathnasium is special because of “Number Sense.” This short video explains that a little:
We do not take our kids to Mathnasium for homework help or test prep at all. We focus on the Number Sense curriculum. This is not about the short term goal of the next homework or the next test. We are interested in the long term goals of readiness for math at the high school and college levels, as well as tests like the SAT and ACT.
Like many parents, we are unhappy with the math curriculum in our schools. People love to blame one group of politicians or another. The truth is that politicians of all stripes and education bureaucrats have been destroying math education for decades. It dates back to New Math in the 1960s and has only gotten worse.
Mathnasium’s own curriculum brings kids back to math that makes sense. We have found it particularly helpful with kids in elementary and middle school. In a way it’s like a vaccine. Spending a couple extra hours a week doing math the right way inoculates kids against the sickness of Common Core and No Child Left Behind. It helps them develop a solid foundation of real understanding, making it easier to learn higher level math when they get there.
To think about it another way, spending a couple extra hours a week doing math can only help a child for those high stakes college admissions tests down the road. If it gets your kid an extra 50 or 100 points on the Math SAT, that makes a significant difference in what schools they can get into and what scholarships might be available. Thinking even longer term, a kid who might otherwise be scared of the math in engineering or some other subject could be more ready to take on those challenges.
Mathematical literacy is tremendously important for college-bound kids. For those who are looking to give their kids an extra boost, we highly recommend Mathnasium. It’s not an overnight fix, but a process that leads to substantial improvement after a year or two.
Here’s another video about Number Sense, with the Mathnasium founder: