By SARAH SHMERLING | Editor-in-Chief
Catherine Baek Dambrosia spent nearly 25 years in the corporate beauty world, heading global education for major cosmetic companies, before she took a step back and found herself opening a beauty space of her own in Pacific Palisades.
“I decided that I no longer wanted to be in the corporate world because sometimes beauty can get a little ugly,” she explained, “and I just needed to detox for a minute.”
During her detox, she found a for lease sign on a Via De La Paz space while dropping her son off at Palisades Charter Elementary School. After spending the last six years thinking of opening a space, Baek Dambrosia finally found the perfect spot: BE ROSY opened in September.
“BE ROSY is all about taking care of yourself, but for me, it’s more about educating our clients,” Baek Dambrosia shared.
The beauty space offers a range of services, from manicures and pedicures to makeup application. There is a focus on educating clients about clean beauty, with a push to use products free of toxic ingredients.
“What’s really cool is that I don’t buy bulk, like scrubs and lotions and things like that, that are full of toxic ingredients,” Baek Dambrosia explained. “We hand make everything here, so you get to choose between Himalayan salt and organic cane sugar. We don’t even have pure essential oil—we purchase certified organic pure essential oil, so we go deeper.”
Baek Dambrosia shared the three pillars of BE ROSY: wellness, education and building a community. Her team’s mantra is “True beauty should make you look and feel good from the inside out.”
The name BE ROSY came from Baek Dambrosia trying to find a name that tied together all of the services the space would offer.
“When you had those rosy cheeks as a child, you’ve been running around, you feel good, you’re happy, and I just love flushed pink cheeks,” she explained. “I thought, ‘That’s perfect.’ So BE ROSY stands for being happy and feeling joyful and good about yourself. Not only that but you look good because you are naturally blushed.”
She explained that owning her own business is a lot of work and that there are times where she has thought it would be easier to return to corporate—but that the work she is doing now is much more rewarding, especially because she is in the Palisades.
Even after a couple of months of operating in the Palisades, Baek Dambrosia and her team agree that the clients are what makes the Palisades so special.
“You can ask any of our beauty specialists here, they will tell you what they love about Palisades,” she shared. “Number one, we love the people. We have never met any community that warm and sweet and generous in every way.”
Baek Dambrosia encouraged people to appreciate all of the services that are available in town, not just her own, adding that each location offers different services and different technicians—that there are unique benefits at each space.
“Working here, I have such big respect for the beauty specialists, especially nail technicians,” she shared. “It’s hard work, it is such hard work. Not only is it physically exhausting but we do our best to keep our clients happy.”
Those interested in checking our BE ROSY, located at 861 Via De La Paz, can do so Monday through Saturday from 9:30 a.m. to 7 p.m.
For more information, visit berosybeauty.com.
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