NYC Is Experiencing a Summer Beauty Boom, And We're Not Mad About It

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Ever since Birchbox opened its first store in Soho and the blowout salon became a Manhattan omnipresence, NYC's brick-and-mortar beauty options seem to have expanded at lightning speeds. Much like gyms and juice shops, the beauty salon-slash-store—often dubbed the beauty bar—is now a de facto staple for any neighborhood worthy of being considered fancy.

To make sense of all these new services, we've laid out all the just-opened and soon-to-open salons, stores, "makeup studios," "anti-spas," or whatever you want to call them, that are here to beautify NYC for summer:

Joli Beauty Bar

When: TBD
Where: TBD, Soho
What: A six-chair, "French café-inspired" store-slash-salon for makeup applications and lessons, $40 blowouts, "depuffing" treatments, gel nails, and under-the-radar beauty brands—all of which can be enjoyed with a glass of wine or a cocktail in hand.

Blushington

When: July 29th
Where: Le Parker Meridien, 119 W. 56th Street, Midtown
What: An LA-based makeup salon with ten chairs and six looks to choose from, as well as lash extensions, brow services, and a glass of champagne for each guest. You also might be seeing a lot of them soon—the brand says they want to open ten NYC salons in the next two years. To celebrate their first, however, they'll be offering a full day's worth of free makeup services on opening day.

M.A.C. Makeup Studio

When: This month
Where: 825 Lexington Avenue, Upper East Side
What: As the cosmetics giant's first-ever makeup studio, the six-chair salon offers services like a full face of makeup (contouring included!) for $60, plus a la carte applications like winged liner or smokey eye ($15 for 15 minutes), and makeup lessons ($90). The biggest perk? Unlike regular M.A.C. stores, stylists won't be pushing you to leave with a bag full of beauty products.

Drybar

When & where: 270 Madison Avenue, Midtown (now open), 60 East 10th Street, Greenwich Village (mid-August), Brookfield Place (early October), 215 Pacific Street, Boerum Hill (Thanksgiving). 
What: Home of the beloved $40 blowout—er, formerly $40 blowout, now it's $45—is best known for proliferating the streets of NYC with perfect hair at an astonishingly rapid pace, and this year's no different: By the end of 2015, they'll have a dozen NYC locations, not to mention their new at-home service.

Birchbox @ Gap

When: Through July
Where: Gap stores at Herald Square, Flatiron District, and Lincoln Center
What: The online subscription service's latest push into the offline world, these pop-ups offer a summery selection of the beauty products you can expect to find on the website—think bright lip color from Jouer, Supergoop subscreen, neon Floss Gloss nail polishes, and the special $30 Birchbox + Gap box.

Davines

When: July 10th (now open)
Where: 41 Wooster Street, Soho
What: The eco-conscious Italian haircare brand is opening its first salon-slash-training center to the U.S. for the first time. Located inside the current home of Ion Studio, the space just underwent gut renovations to build three levels, each designed for a different aspect of haircare.

Fox & Jane

When: Now open
Where: 288 Atlantic Avenue, Boerum Hill
What: One of the best salon mini-chains in the city—and one that won't likely cost you more than $100—just opened up a salon in Brooklyn's Boerum Hill, adding to the outposts already in the Lower East Side, the East Village, and the Upper West Side.

Heyday Spa

When: Now open
Where: 1130 Broadway, Nomad
What: Back when it opened in May, we dubbed Heyday everything from an "anti-spa" to "a blowout bar for facials." In other words, what it offers is a facial for people who don't put the idea of the "spa day" on a pedestal. Everything's bookable online or via an app (because millennials!) and includes customizable $60 half-hour sessions or 50 minutes for $95.