BALTIMORE — Regular manicures are part of Ashleigh Johnson’s beauty routine. She grew frustrated, though, by the customer service she and her friends were getting at nail salons.
“It was very unsanitary conditions,” she says. “Subpar treatment when it comes to the quality and the services we got. And I feel like where I spend money should reflect who I am as an individual.”
So, Ashleigh took matters into her own hands, literally.
After being laid off during the pandemic, she went to nail tech school and opened her own shop, Kaizen Beauty. First as a mobile salon, then in her home and now, a storefront. Thanks to the Downtown Partnership’s BOOST Program.
“I had always known about BOOST but I thought it was geared towards bigger, more established businesses in my mind,” she says. “And I think a lot of times, especially as Black women, we don’t apply to things unless we think that we’re 100 percent qualified and we overthink the process a lot.”
The BOOST Program gives grants to existing Black owned and operated businesses to move into retail space in the heart of Baltimore. Ashleigh is in BOOST’s newest cohort.
“They let me know that I was in a stage where I was ready to expand,” she says. “I did not really have access to a lot of traditional funding opportunities, so BOOST really came through for me.”
She’s already leased a space in the old F&D building on North Charles Street, a vacant office building being converted into apartments and retail space. She’s got great vision for these bare wall.
“You can sit down and you know, have a little bit of a refreshment while you wait,” she says while pointing to different areas of the empty shop. “Then there’ll be pedicure stations probably against this wall over here, and the manicure stations over here.”
In the new shop, she’ll be able to offer other beauty services, hire staff and start an apprenticeship program.
“Where underserved people from especially Black communities are able to get the training, both technical skills and soft skills, that we need in order to change the face of what the beauty industry looks like,” she says.
Kaizen Beauty is slated to open in September at 210 N. Charles Street.
