Barry’s Beauty Bar: Brooklyn, NY

nabi’s change of color

design by: Sydonnie

technician: Sydonnie

price: $$

Studios are rated in a 1-3 star system. To learn more see our studio list.

Overall:★*

*Disclaimer the overall rating for my experience one star, but I’m certain that if you were to have an appointment with one of the studio’s leading stylists you would have a better experience.

While I was working on our studio list, as I do every so often to keep up with the newest salons, I noticed that we were lacking in diversity. Dali and I are half Korean and our passion for nail art started in Korea, so we end up going to a lot of asian salons. There is a whole black nail culture and many black owned salons that we weren’t acknowledging. A lot of nail trends that have just become “mainstream” were popular in the back community many years before. The origins of nail art date back to both ancient Africa and China. Nails were painted with henna to denote social status around 5000 B.C. in Egypt, while the first nail polish was created around 3000 B.C. in China. When I found Barry’s Beauty Bar in Brooklyn, I was not only excited by their work, but I was excited to go to a proud black owned and operated salon to begin to dive into an important part of nail art culture that I had not yet experienced.

To book at Barry’s you have to go to their website and book online. There is a $20 deposit required for all nail art appointments that is deducted from your total. There is also a fee for credit card transactions ($3, $4 or $5 depending on the price of your service), so I would recommend paying cash.

STUDIO: ★

Barry’s Beauty Bar was established by Barry and his partner Jay who have been together for nine years (aw <3). They have two locations, one in Brooklyn and one in Queens. We went to the Brooklyn location and were able to talk with Jay for a bit, and he told us that they live in the area. We parked a couple of blocks away by accident, but it was a sunny day so it was a nice walk. The sound of Caribbean music drifted down the street as we passed the many murals that decorate the corners of Flatbush Ave. Up the mirrored staircase of the second floor salon there was the smell of acetone and acrylic as we opened the glass door. I don’t usually go to salons that use a lot of acrylics, or even lacquer polishes that create that typical nail salon smell, so that stood out to me. The manicure desks were lined up in a row down the length of the salon. As I sat in my chair across from my tech, I could see a lot of scuffs from chairs and people passing by on the wall behind her, but besides similar signs of wear and tear the salon was in pretty good shape.

NAIL CARE: ★

Although I liked my tech Sydonnie, I was disappointed by how she removed my previous polish. I had on my full crystal nails by Jenny Bui, which I was so sad to be removing and I already miss them so much. They didn’t soak my nails in any acetone to loosen the glue. Sydonnie mostly used the cuticle cutter to pry off the crystals. It hurt a little and it was a little dangerous because they were flying everywhere. During the filling of the hard gel I felt a burning sensation and afterwards some of my nails looked red and irritated. This was my first time getting acrylics, so I’m not sure if this is standard, but she pushed my cuticles back more than I was used to. In an effort to make a super smooth transition between the acrylic and my natural nail, which I really appreciated, she filed a lot near the base of my nail. The filing was a little rough however, and I did suffer a few cuts. Even though I haven’t had acrylics before, I feel like everything could have been done a little more carefully.

ART: ★

I wanted to try holographic powder and had a particular design to show my tech for inspiration. The inspo design had pointed nails which I don’t like. I asked her for round, but I think she misheard me and thought that I meant squoval. After she finished filing off my old gel, the ends of my nails weren’t what I hoped, so I asked her to bring some of them out and she did very nicely. The resulting shape of my nails was actually really attractive despite it not being what I wanted. In addition to adding a little length, she widened my nails a bit with the acrylic which is what I think made a big difference. The thickness of the acrylic is really, really nice, as I was super worried that they’d end up thick. You totally can’t tell they are acrylic! I was so surprised and delighted!

She didn’t apply any polish over the pink acrylic, only the holographic powder. Overall the powder is fine, but she did miss a spot on one of my thumbs that I didn’t see until we left the salon. The other thing that I was unaware of with holographic powder was how much it is light dependent. In the salon I thought that it wasn’t the right powder and I was prepared to live with it, but once I saw it in the sun it began to shine in the way I anticipated. Out of the sunlight, which is where I am most of the time unfortunately, the holographic powder isn’t exciting. If you’re thinking about trying it I would consider what kind of lighting it’ll be seen in for most of the day.

When Sydonnie looked at the photo she asked what size gems I wanted, and I told her to keep it on the smaller side. I thought she would take patterns from the design I showed her, but maybe it was because I had totally gemmed nails when I came in that she decided to cover the whole nail with gems. Really, I wanted the gems in a similar pattern to what was in the picture, and I should have made that more clear. I think that if this had been anytime before I had Jenny’s do my nails I would have been happy. However, I quickly realized that the gems Jenny had been using were real crystals, which is why they sparkle like the light of the sun and are outrageously expensive. All I’m saying is once you go real crystal, you can’t go back.

LONGEVITY: ★★★

Acrylics really are indestructible. They were not my favorite to take off, and although they last much longer than any of my hard gel manicures have lasted I wasn’t converted. I don’t really need my nails to last forever, just long enough to justify the price!