Beauty Beach Lounge owners

BEAUTY BEACH LOUNGE OWNERS STAY STRONG IN A TIME OF CHANGE

Shay Merchav and Jennifer Nairn rely on their friendship to get them through

STORY BY SHANEE EDWARDS | PHOTOS COURTESY OF BEAUTY BEACH LOUNGE

One of the businesses hit hardest by COVID-19 is the hair salon. California Governor Gavin Newsom has closed the industry, reopened it, then closed it again. At the time of press, hairstylists were only able to operate outdoors which means haircuts but not color, a big bummer for many people who rely on their colorist to feel confident about their appearance.

For Shay Merchav and Jennifer Nairn, owners of Beauty Beach Lounge at Runway, dealing with constantly changing orders regarding their salon has been a roller coaster.

Nairn says she feels like she’s in survival mode. “This whole process has been really scary as an individual but then if you own a business, have a family and kids and employees – you want them to have a job to come back to. It’s hustle mode, really,” she says.

Merchav agrees it’s been a struggle but notes that Nairn has been a huge source of support to her, saying, “As a small business owner the thing that got my business partner and I through was just each other.”

The business partners are also best friends who met when they were in their 20s, both working at José Eber in Beverly Hills. Since then, the service industry has had its ups and downs, but neither thought they’d ever experience something like a pandemic.

“We can’t operate unless we physically touch people,” says Merchav, “so for us to be shut down there were no adjustments we could make.”

When the first closure was lifted

Jennifer Nairn and Shay Merchav have been best friends since they were in their 20s

back in June, Merchav and Nairn knew they would need to greatly adjust the salon experience for the safety of their customers and employees. “We took a couple weeks after they said we could reopen so we could understand how we were going to do this,” says Merchav.

Nairn says she was really nervous to reopen with all the new protocols because when people go into a higher end salon, they expect an upscale experience. “We usually serve champagne and snacks, have magazines,” says Nairn. “You want to give people the whole treatment. Now we’re taking temperatures, handing out health questionnaires and we don’t have a waiting area right now – it’s been so different,” she says.

When they temporarily reopened, Nairn says her first day back was a lot better than she expected. “Clients were just happy to come in and get their hair done and they didn’t care what they had to do to get it done! Once you get through that first moment of change you make it work and you just go with it,” she says.

For Merchav, this time period has been one of self-reflection and a chance to take inventory of her inner resources. “As women, we can multitask. I feel like a lot of my brain is very masculine when it comes to business and things like that.” But she says going from being a business owner with 20 employees to being her child’s school teacher was a wild ride. “It was a lot to wrap my brain around but I can definitely tell you at the end of all of it … my daughter and I flipped a new page in our relationship and I value that time so much that I’ve decided to come back to work less.”

Both Merchav and Nairn agree it’s difficult to know what the future holds for their business, but luckily, they had the foresight when they started their business to put six month’s-worth of finances away for a rainy day.

“I feel like when you have everything to lose, when you’re putting every single penny you have for yourself and your child with nothing to fall back on, you have to,” says Merchav. “As a woman and a mother, you want to make sure you do things the smart way so that you’re protected in some manner, otherwise, I don’t think I’d sleep at night.”

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A LAWYER WITH A LOVE OF FAMILY

Rittu Kumar opened her own law firm to help get back to her roots BY SHANEE EDWARDS | PHOTO BY LUIS CHAVEZ

Rittu Kumar was born and raised in Southern California by immigrant parents from India. Coming from a family of engineers and doctors, she was encouraged to follow in her parents’ footsteps. When she was getting her undergraduate degree at USC in business administration, she was required to take a business law class that just so happened to be taught by a female lawyer whom Kumar found deeply inspiring. “I just fell in love with [the law].” So Kumar defied her family’s expectations and went on to attend Loyola Law School.

Kumar initially worked as a litigator for an Orange County law firm but longed to get back to Los Angeles. After a year, she switched to a new firm in LA and made partner after six years. “I was doing trials in both federal and state court and managing a team of attorneys, but eventually I wanted to go out on my own, develop my own clients, and create my own firm. That’s what I did in October of 2017. I created Kumar Law and I’ve been the owner of my own law firm since then,” says Kumar. Kumar focuses one-half of her Attorney Rittu Kumar fell in love with the law as an undergraduate student at USC business on employment law, business coming back to work. That was a very inengineers through his alma mater. “He litigation, and contract disputes and neteresting ebb and flow with these clients,” was an engineer, he came from India. gotiations. The other half of her business Kumar says. He was a strong proponent of equality in is estate planning. “When I was in law Because there is so much uncertainty education amongst women and men. As school, I loved estate planning. Opening during the pandemic, Kumar’s encouragan engineer, he saw the inequality that my own firm allowed me to take a step ing people to get their estate plan done, women faced in his profession. … He back, go back to my roots and do someor review and update their existing one. tried to get me to become an engineer thing I always enjoyed,” she says. “This pandemic is affecting not only the but it wasn’t my preference. In his name,

Kumar represents a lot of business elderly but everyone,” she cautions. I want to make sure that if there are owners so when the pandemic hit “it was As a Playa Vista resident since 2007 women out there with the desire and the really interesting because I had to help, and the mother of two girls, family is drive, but are financially unable to pursue guide, and consult with them both with incredibly important to Kumar, who it, I’d like to be there to help support the closing of their businesses and when sadly lost her dad in March. To honor them,” she says. they reopened, to protect their businesses, him, she is setting up a scholarship fund Certainly, Kumar’s father would be themselves and their employees that were in his name to help women become proud.