Ali Stone
Sometimes, it can be hard work to look your best. First, you have to find time in your crazy schedule for a salon appointment. Then you might have to drive across town, where you'll sit in your stylist's chair for several hours. Pampering can be exhausting.
Enter Arch, a new breed of salon that caters to the lunch-hour crowd.
The salon, which opened in January on the ground floor of the Tenney Building, offers a wide selection of what co-owner and stylist Cera Fass calls "express services," including blowouts (a hairstyle without a haircut), brow waxing and makeup application. If you need to get in and out quickly, this is your salon.
Arch got its start in Rockford in 2011 and opened a second location in Chicago.
The storefront reminded me more of a shop like Anthropologie than a traditional beauty salon. In the luxe-meets-rustic decor, shelves of beauty products and salon chairs are flanked by antiques and lit by crystal chandeliers.
I was greeted and taken to Arch's "brow bar," a spot dedicated to eyebrows. After a consultation based upon my face shape and brow arch, my brows were waxed and plucked to perfection. I've been getting my eyebrows waxed since I was in high school, and they've never looked so good.
Fass co-founded Arch with her friend, Betsy Branca, an aesthetician.
"We wanted to do something that we loved and stood behind," says Fass. "Brows are what we were founded on. We really like the idea of offering express services and helping people get ready for special events."
Brides are already scheduling services for their special day. "We have about 10 weddings booked this year already," says Fass.
In addition to offering eyebrow waxing, tinting, styling and hair treatments Arch also specializes in makeup application for people who are not used to makeup.
In stock are products from harder-to-find brands like Lipstick Queen, EVE LOM, Smith and Cult and RMS Beauty -- a certified-organic line.
Services range from a $10 lip wax to $25 for a brow tweeze, $35 for a wash and blowout and $50 for a makeup application.
Editor's note: This article has been corrected to indicate the $10 service is a lip wax, not a tint.
Arch Madison
archapothecary.com
23 S. Pinckney St.
608-467-2488
