Almond Nail Bar digs into expansion mode

Winnipeg’s newest export is packing its polish.

The first out-of-province Almond Nail Bar has quietly opened in Burnaby, B.C. Chinh La, the franchise owner, is preparing for a big unveiling in September.

His shop’s opening will be followed by one in Ontario and two more in British Columbia. Back in Manitoba, locations in Niverville and Steinbach are brewing.

In Winnipeg — where La and his wife own two locations — things are “very busy.”

Pride and passion stitched right in

Surrounded by vibrant textiles, Oluwayemisi Josephine Ogunwale, or Yemz, as she likes to be referred to, sits at her sewing machine, brow furrowed in concentration as she stitches the hem of a dress.

The tools of her trade within easy reach — fabric scissors, measuring tapes, cottons of various shades — Ogunwale is in her happy place: creating beautiful and wearable works of art for her loyal clientele.

The dressmaker has always been interested in fashion. As a child she would sew doll clothing from scraps of material her mother discarded. This progressed to altering her own clothes: modifying hems, adjusting frills, loosening or tightening waistlines.

“Sometimes I would destroy the clothes because of how many changes I made to it,” she laughs.

Winnipeg esthetician Tina Cable knows sometimes beauty can be skin-deep

There is nothing quite like the rush of seeing an email from Tina Cable of Myuz Artistry with the subject line “cancellation.”

As one of Winnipeg’s most in-demand skin-care gurus, Cable can be a hard lady to get some face time with. Any available appointments with her for facials, skin consults or facial sculpting are booked almost immediately after she opens her schedule.

And those cancellation emails? You’d better hope you just happened to be checking your inbox when the note arrived, because those spots disappear quickly, too.

Those lucky enough to get in to see Cable know what the hype is about. When it comes to skin care, she has a wealth of information about a volume of products so enormous it can be overwhelming at best and crippling at worst.

Unique Bunny jumps to 10 stores, with eye on future expansion

Ekam Verma’s shopping trip might be sparked by an email: we’ve restocked. Her destination? Unique Bunny. Verma scanned the aisles of Unique Bunny’s McPhillips Street location on Monday — her go-to Japanese eyeliner was across the store; South Korean cleansing foams and pore repair serums stood nearby.

Woody’s Barbershop opens doors, fulfils personal dream

For his birthday this year, Adam Woodbury treated himself to a business.

On June 30, the Red Seal hairstylist celebrated turning 32. The next day, he got the keys to 558 Academy Rd.; after almost two months of renovations, he opened Woody’s Barbershop late last month.

“I’m so happy,” Woodbury said Tuesday during some downtime between clients. “My life has changed forever and it’s going to be so exciting.”

A barber’s pole spins in the front window of the 850-square-foot shop, located near Lanark Street.

Becoming a hairstylist today goes far beyond knowing your way around a pair of scissors

There's a scene in the movie Grease where Frenchy, the "ne'er do well" would-be beautician, is visited by a crooning angel who tries to get her to wake up and smell the Barbicide regarding her lack of talent in her chosen field.

Not only has Frenchy "flunked shampoo," her failure is further highlighted on screen by the fact that she has inadvertently dyed her hair a bright shade of pink.

Roberto Sinopoli hates that scene.

As director of the newly opened Aveda Institute Winnipeg, the words "beauty school dropout" aren't exactly music to his ears. In fact, he thinks the term "beauty school" itself could use a makeover.

Du Pérou au Manitoba

Quand le Métis de La Broquerie, Miguel Vielfaure, s'est rendu au Pérou en mai 2006, il n'avait alors pas l'intention de se lancer dans le commerce équitable. C'est pourtant ce qu'il a développé en créant Etchiboy, début 2007.

"Quand je suis allé au Pérou, j'ai trouvé sur un marché des ceintures faites sur un métier tisser très semblables aux ceintures fléchées métisses," raconte Miguel Vielfaure. "Ä mon retour au Canada, la Fédération des Métis du Manitoba m'en a commandées 26.

"J'ai donc contacté une amie Lima, qui m'a mis en contact avec l'Association des mères célibataires El Telar, proche de Cuzco, pour la fabrication des ceintures," poursuit-il. "En les rencontrant, par le biais d'Internet, j'ai décidé de me lancer dans le commerce équitable et de créer Etchiboy."

El Telar rassemble 20 mères célibataires, veuves ou abandonnées, dans les communautés rurales de Cuzco. Elles ont accès sept métiers tisser pour fabriquer les commandes provenant 80 % de Miguel Vielfaure et 20 pourcentage du marché local.