Beckie Newman realized a longtime dream when she recently opened Beyond the Mirror salon in Winthrop.
New salon in Winthrop offers range of services
When cosmetologist Beckie Newman was just a little girl, she watched a movie where a young woman dressed up, got her hair done, and put on makeup. The girl was transformed, not just physically, but also psychologically. She looked at herself in the mirror, twirled, and radiated confidence.
Young Beckie turned to her mother and said, “I want to do that – help people feel better about themselves.”
Now, as the owner and hair designer at Winthrop’s Beyond the Mirror salon, Newman is doing just that – helping people look their best, so they can feel good about themselves.
A Liberty Bell High School graduate, Newman wanted to pursue further education that would lead to secure employment, but didn’t have a clear vision of what that would be. Her mother pointed out that Newman “was always doing friends’ hair and nails,” leading Newman to enroll in what was then called the Academy of Hair Design in Wenatchee.
Upon completion of the program, she spent three years working for Supercuts, two years at Sun Mountain Lodge’s spa, and seven years at Karen’s Family Salon before taking the leap to open her own salon, currently located at 910A Highway 20, in the building just north of the Methow Valley Thriftway in Winthrop.
“I have an 8-year-old daughter and a 3-year-old son,” says Newman. “I needed some schedule changes in order to make home life and work life feasible. I needed to make the jump to owning my own business so I could better coordinate my schedule.”
Plenty of business
With more people moving to the valley and with more men seeking haircuts, colors, beard trims and even pedicures, Newman says, “there’s enough business to go around. There are a bunch of salons and stylists in the valley and we’re all pretty busy.”
At her spacious and cheery salon, Newman offers haircuts, color, perms, facial waxing, beard grooming, makeup, manicures, pedicures and hair designs – prom hairdos, up-dos, and curls. She also offers on-location hair and makeup for bridal parties.
A young woman who was in the salon having her hair treated and styled during the interview with Newman didn’t have a job interview or a hot date that evening; she simply said, “Having my hair done nicely makes me feel good about myself,” validating Newman’s success in the goal she set for herself as a little girl.
The Methow Valley provides plenty of material for Newman to work with. In this arid climate where people spend long hours out in the sun, on the water, and in the wind, hair and skin tend to be very dry. Thus the first tip Newman offers for healthy hair and skin is “stay hydrated.” Drink lots of water every day, she says. “You’ll see the difference.”
Regarding hair, says Newman, the trick is to keep it conditioned. “Thermal protection and UV protection are essential,” she says, and the lustrous locks of the young woman whose hair she is styling are testament to the effectiveness of her conditioning treatment and the thermal product she uses to seal the cuticle.
Coloring one’s hair is more popular than ever before, due in part to the advances in hair coloring technology. “My high school chemistry class suddenly became really relevant once I started coloring hair,” says Newman. “It suddenly made so much sense why I needed to understand ratios and reactions.”
Coloring is also popular, Newman theorizes, “because it’s not just for rebels anymore.” It used to be that people who wanted purple or blue hair were either teens or mavericks, says Newman. “But now even business women want brightly colored hair, or at least a ‘peek-a-boo’ strip at the base of their neck, which they can hide at work but reveal out in public by wearing their hair up.”
Balayage – a structured, gradual fade-out color treatment – also has become very popular. “Balayage solves the problem for people who have highlight issues,” says Newman. “It gives you a sun-kissed look and you don’t have to worry about your dark roots all the time, because it doesn’t affect the hair near the crown.” Newman is also currently helping several clients transition gracefully from dyed hair to natural grey because, inexplicably but serendipitously, grey hair is riding a wave of popularly. Long may it last.
Knowing the client
Guiding clients through big hair style alterations – either radical color changes or dramatic cuts – requires not just technical skill, but also psychological insight. “You have to learn to read the client,” Newman says. “People come in with long hair and show me a pixie cut and say ‘take it all off!’ I have to tell them, ‘look, we can always take more off, but we can’t put it back on, so let’s go slowly, little by little.’” You can, Newman acknowledges, fix color mistakes, but you have to wait out cut mistakes.
Although the bulk of her business – and probably that of any hair salon – is women, Newman has quite a few male clients. “Men are starting to realize that it’s OK to care about their hair and beards, and even their feet,” she says. “It’s not feminine, it’s just good health.”
“The pedicures are really rewarding for men,” she says. “A lot of men around here work on their feet all day – they’re carpenters, firefighters, foresters. Getting that pedicure, getting those callouses filed off – more than one guy has just nodded off in the chair when I’m working on his feet.”
Children, too, are treasured clients for Newman. Little girls love the complicated patterns she braids into their hair, while “faux-hawks” are trending among little boys right now. “It’s a family salon,” says Newman. “I like to work with all ages.”
Contact Newman and Beyond the Mirror at (509) 881-1652 or email rnewman_hair@yahoo.com.
