Spa services and businesses have historically been in a hyper-gendered atmosphere and in recent years, 2SLGBTQ2+ advocates and beauty professionals have been advocating for change in the industry. Pride Beauty Lounge, which opened its doors in June 2021 and its first hair salon in November 2022, is Nova Scotia’s first outwardly 2SLGBTQ2+ spa.
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Spa services and businesses have historically been in a hyper-gendered atmosphere and in recent years, 2SLGBTQ2+ advocates and beauty professionals have been advocating for change in the industry. Pride Beauty Lounge, which opened its doors in June 2021 and its first hair salon in November 2022, is Nova Scotia’s first outwardly 2SLGBTQ2+ spa.
Pride Beauty Lounge is focused on providing an inclusive, judgment-free and gender-neutral beauty and spa experience. I know that spas and salons can be extremely gendered spaces from their service menu to their marketing to the way they greet their clients when they walk in the door! I wanted to create a space where all clients are welcome; all genders, all hair and all bodies!
Gender Neutral Services
Having gender-neutral services means that the offerings your spa or salon has are not associated with any particular gender. Examples of gendered services may include Men’s haircuts, Women’s Brazilian wax, men’s facials, etc. To have gender-neutral services means that there is no gender specification to your prices, business or services. The purpose of gender-neutral services is the inclusion of all genders, including those outside of the binary (man or woman), and those within the trans community, such as those who are trans-women, trans-men and nonbinary people. The trans community has been highly left out of the beauty community and spas and salons because of the noted gendered service menus.
Mental Health Friendly Beauty Care
As beauty professionals, we work so closely with our clients that it can feel like we are literal therapists sometimes! Our clients open up to us so much and trust our opinions. The correlation between mental health care and being a beauty professional is undeniable. Prior to being an esthetician, I worked as a mental health counselor. I immediately recognized the correlation between the two industries and utilized skills from my prior trade-in policy and practices at Pride Beauty Lounge, along with how I interact with my clientele.
I took a trauma-informed care training certification a few years ago and I try to utilize this with all my clients. Trauma-informed care essentially means that we recognize that anybody (more like everybody) has undergone something traumatic in their lives and as a service provider and someone working with someone in vulnerable situations (naked or eyes taped closed) that we purposefully reduce risks of not re-traumatizing people with different skills, actions and conversations (or lack thereof).
When I’m with my clients I try very hard to avoid triggering topics such as drugs, alcohol, toxic relationships, family drama or anything that could make someone think of their own past traumas. I use consent-based care and informed consent when with clients which means that I’m asking them before I touch them, explain the whole procedure to them before I do anything, and even when I’m doing the treatment, I may ask the client if they want me to explain everything that I’m doing. It all comes down to reducing anxieties for clients and working with them to get the service and care that they want and desire when with an esthetician or beauty professional in a safe and comfortable environment.
Tori Yeomans (she/they) is a spa and salon owner in Lower Sackville, Nova Scotia, Canada. She is passionate about inclusivity in the beauty industry by helping other beauty professionals and spa owners educate their teams, develop and implement inclusive practices and policies, and become a strong ally to the 2SLGBTQ2+ community. To find out more about Tori Yeomans and Pride Beauty Lounge, visit www.pridebeautylounge.com or @tori.pridebeauty on Instagram.
