Dolmage opens Lunar Lounge Salon in Blyth

BY SCOTT STEPHENSON

There’s a new business on Blyth’s main drag, and it’s here to help local residents embrace the beauty of the lovely stuff that grows out of our heads - hair! Stylist and owner Leonie Dolmage recently opened Lunar Lounge Salon for business, in the space previously occupied by Pianovations. While she specializes in the art of styling curly hair, Dolmage hopes that the Lunar Lounge will grow into a place that celebrates all aspects of natural beauty.

 

Born in Holland, Dolmage moved to Londesborough with her family when she was 13 years old. “I went to high school in Clinton, but Blyth had soccer, and then I got a job at The Boot, and then I worked at The Boot on and off for like seven or eight years actually - it was awesome!” She previously worked as a massage therapist, and felt that it was a natural progression to get into hairstyling. “I think I’m not a super strong entrepreneur,” she explained, “but I do like working for myself. I have a bit of that entrepreneurial side in me. I think that was something I’d always kind of envisioned, long-term. I’m actually a bit of a new stylist! I started school in January of 2020, so it’s really been since then that I’ve been in the hair industry, so it’s only been about four years. It’s come to fruition really quickly.”

 

She hopes to bring in some like-minded stylists and aestheticians into the space soon that have their own special areas of focus. “There’s a couple different things happening within the salon. Personally, I work a lot with curly hair - obviously I have curly hair myself, and that is a clientele that I’ve been working with for a while. But the salon in general, it’s really for anybody who wants to come in, and relax, and feel refreshed from their hair service. I hope to really make it into an experience, where you feel relaxed, and feel like you got your money’s worth. I want it to be a luxurious service, in a way. We’re really just about natural beauty, and about having a holistic mindset of life. It’s for people who like clean beauty and who want to be aware of the ingredients that are in products.”

 

Downtown Blyth is full of interesting historical spaces, and Lunar Lounge now occupies one of them - it once had a bowling alley in its basement. “The lanes are still there!” Dolmage explained. “It wasn’t my plan to go with this big of a space right away - I thought I’d work from home for a bit, then maybe get a space, but this place was on the market... I said I was just going to go look at it to get it out of my head, and then you walk in and you see the walls and the floors and the ceiling, and that’s it!”
After attending the Stratford Festival School of Hair, Dolmage set out to make people feel empowered about the unique properties of their hair. “As a lot of curly [hair] people will tell you, the way traditional hair cutting is done is not meant for curly hair, and it’s not really part of the education system, either, that curly hair should be treated differently.” She feels deeply connected to her curly locks, and hopes to bring that feeling to other people. “I’ve had curls my whole life, but I only started learning about my curls in 2018. A lot of people will say ‘I need to control my hair’, or ‘It won’t do this, it won’t do that’. Your hair isn’t necessarily meant to do that - let it do what it wants to do. Help it do what it wants to do, rather than fight it.”
Once the salon is fully up and running, Dolmage also hopes to expand her services one step further than hair - the scalp. “My eventual goal is to offer more scalp specific services - facials for the scalp, basically. I want to work a lot more with people who have hair loss and scalp issues.”

 

While Dolmage believes that there is always a time and a place for shags and bobs, she feels that trends are heading in another direction. “We’ve been in this trend for a while now, but I think it’s sticking around - lower-maintenance styles, and, maybe I’m biased, but natural beauty, not getting too complicated, keeping it simple - people don’t want to be coming into the salon once every six weeks anymore.”

 

The stylist doesn’t just like the look of natural hair - she feels that there are deep benefits to accepting the natural state of the self.

 

“I’m a big advocate for wearing your own hair curly, and letting your grays come in. And not everybody is ready to fully embrace their grays - whether you are or not, I’m happy to help you feel the beauty of it. It’s just letting people be themselves... I think that it can really enhance the way someone feels about themselves. I think if you are enjoying the hair on your head, it makes you stand a little taller and walk a little stronger.”

 

Leonie Dolmage wants to make Lunar Lounge Salon into a place that helps local people feel like their best selves. “I think we’re all meant to be on the path, and are all kind of going in the same direction, but we’re all different in our own unique ways. Be open to possibilities - I came into this business thinking that I only wanted to cut curly hair, but as I learned about colouring, I found that there was fun in it! I’m just kind of embracing it all - there’s no reason to tie yourself to one pole - just do it, and the stars will align, one way or another.”

 

Lunar Lounge Salon is already open for business, but a grand opening is scheduled for April 27.