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BEYOND BEAUTÉ DAY SPA
AND WELLNESS CENTER
A Small Day Spa’s Story of Growth
B Y R AC H E L Z AW I L A
L
ittle does a bed sheet and wicker basket make, but for Shirley
Terry-Lopez, it meant a foray into the spa industry. With the
sheet hung for privacy and the basket turned over as a footrest,
Terry-Lopez turned her rented station in a Houston hair salon
into her first spa operation in 1984.
As a single mom with two kids, money was tight. She researched
natural foods and oils to use in masks and treatments and bought her
first facial steamer from the local drug store. Despite the meager setup,
her client base steadily grew, proving her guiding mantra —“If I help enough
people achieve what they want, I, too, can have everything I want”—true.
Expanding the Business
Karma worked in her favor when, in 1986,
she opened Beyond Beauté Skin Care, a
1,200-square-foot facial salon in Houston’s
Deer Park area. Continuing to work alone,
she partnered with local dermatologists
for treatments. The city’s spa industry was
just bourgeoning, with only two major
spas, so educating her clients on the benefits of professional treatment was a must.
“Department stores were calling a demonstration of cleansing in their chairs a
‘facial’,” Terry-Lopez recalls, “of which
they did at no charge. I had to educate
my guests that a real facial corrected a
skin challenge that they could not do at
home.” The results from the professional
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November 2011
equipment spoke for themselves, and
Terry-Lopez quickly found herself working
13-hour days.
When she was ready to hire additional help a year later, she discovered
her clients weren’t the only people
needing proper spa education—so did
her new employees. “I would give them
my regular guests and take the new
ones,” Terry-Lopez says. “I did this
because I wanted them to be successful.
You might say I used my regular guests
to train my new employees—they knew
what a good facial felt like, and I knew
they would tell the technician what they
needed to do to be better.”
In 1991, Terry-Lopez opened a
second location 15 minutes away in
Clear Lake, renaming the company
Beyond Beauté Day Spa and Wellness
Center. Four years later, she moved the
Deer Park spa to a 5,000-square-foot
Victorian house (where it remains),
opened and closed adjoining yoga and
dance studios in 2005 and 2007, respectively, and then added another 1,400
square feet to Clear Lake in 2008.
Controlling the Chaos
Although admitting controlling the
chaos was a challenge, Terry-Lopez welcomed it. “The biggest advantage my
company has is the fact that I embrace
change,” she says. “I watch to see what
Day spa owner
Shirley TerryLopez started
with a meager
setup when
she opened
her first facial
salon in 1986.