Get ready to repair your summer-ravaged split ends, ladies! Drybar is headed to D.C. The popular blowout bar that originally made waves on the West Coast is launching its 17th and 18th locations in Georgetown and Bethesda, tentatively scheduled for Oct. 19.
Let’s be honest here -- no one puts their hair through more morning misery than D.C.-area residents. Our crazy weather translates to hot, humid summers full of frizzy, untamed fluff, and dry, cold winters granting us brittle strands.
At Drybar, there is no “cut and color.” Blowouts are the focus on the menu, with additional services like scalp massage and conditioning shots ranging from $10-$20.
Alli Webb, Drybar’s founder and a stylist herself for 15 years, started Drybar three and a half years ago as a mobile business. Webb would travel to friends’ homes in the L.A. area, providing convenient hair styling to those who didn’t have a time to spend in the salon.
Soon, word spread and there were too many clients for Webb to handle on her own. She opened up Drybar’s flagship location in Brentwood, Calif., in 2010.
“I wanted to create a place similar to my kind of mobile business where we were just doing blowouts, there was nothing else,” said Webb. The shop in Brentwood was supposed to be Drybar’s one and only location, but once again, interest increased.
Despite 16 already-open shops -- and another nine expected to open by the end of the year -- Drybar saw more requests for a location in the District than anywhere else, said Webb.
The two new shops will be located on Bethesda Row (4840 Bethesda Ave., Bethesda) and in Georgetown (1825 Wisconsin Ave. NW), areas where women are always on the move.
“We want to go where women really want us,” said Webb. “There’s such amazing, powerful and sophisticated women [in D.C.], that I think it’ll be just a great location for us.”
A blowout is $40, no matter what kind of hair you have, and there are seven styles to choose from. Besides the traditional straight and sleek look, Drybar also offers choices like “The Cosmo,” a style with lots of loose curls; “The Mai Tai,” for the perfect messy, beachy waves and “Southern Comfort,” for ladies who love big, voluminous hair.
If you go, budget around 45 minutes for your visit -- enough for you to feel pampered, but not enough to interfere with a busy schedule. It’s an approach that Webb says is the key to Drybar’s success.
“No one’s pressuring you for a haircut,” said Webb. “You’re in, you’re out, it’s simple.”
But, she says, that small amount of time keeps Drybar’s customers feeling great all day long.
“You see this pep in their step that wasn’t there before,” she said. “If your hair looks great, it’s this really powerful confidence you get that’s kind of intangible.”
Both the Bethesda and Georgetown Drybar shops will open at 7 a.m., seven days a week. Appointments can be booked online and via Drybar’s new iPhone app.
