McDive

The original NYC Beauty Bar has expanded to the eyes of multiple beholders nationwide

Comments (0) By Tricia Romano Tuesday, Nov 7 2006

Beauty Bar's owners have also smartly tapped into the photoblogging craze and frequently fly Merlin Bronquesof Last Night's Party and Mark Hunter of thecobrasnake.com to shoot events, further solidifying their reputation in national hipsterdom as the place to be. "Merlin has immortalized the Beauty Bar New York bathroom," Devitt says. Merlin's also helped immortalize the Beauty Bar customer look: girls with heavy eyeliner and boys with shaggy haircuts.

Devitt has his sights set on making Beauty Bar an international brand—he's looking at spots in Toronto, Montreal, London, and Tokyo while eyeing other American cities like Seattle, Miami, Philly, and Chicago. He's also working on a line of Beauty Bar nail polish—he and Knapp are talking with Maybelline and OPI to design colors for each city. "You can get colors done cheaply and easily, but if you want to get a custom bottle done, it's harder," Devitt says. "I wanna do it right if I'm gonna do it. I'm not looking to be the Hard Rock. I want tokeep the integrity of the place, where people can find it in a city where they don't know where to go. When you go out of town, you think, 'Let's go to Beauty Bar. It's always fun.' "