Hair-and-beauty supply boutique

Effort to find organic products turns into a thriving specialty business

Arlesee Kenny-Etheridge makes a good point.

It should be called “returning natural” instead of “going natural.” After all, everyone starts with natural hair, right?

Whether coming or going, it’s where Kenny-Etheridge was determined for her daughter, Kimora Lee, to be – using organic skin and hair care products.

In fact, the notion is what inspired her to open her all-natural supply boutique Beauty by Nature in June 2010.

A few months after the birth of her baby girl, Kenny-Etheridge had a difficult time finding local beauty products that weren’t damaging to the well-being of her youngest child. Unsatisfied, she took matters into her own hands and opened her first location within six months. 

“I’m very serious about finding quality natural products for her hair and skin so she definitely inspired me to open this store,” says Kenny-Etheridge. “Now everybody calls my daughter the organic baby.”

Nestled in The Arbors shopping center off Mallard Creek Church Road adjacent to Massage Envy and Petco you’ll find Beauty by Nature in its new location.

Offering organic hair care brands such as Camille Rose Naturals, Hydrotherma Naturals and My Honey Child, along with unrefined bath and body lines like Pooka Pure & Simple, LaLicious and Bumble & Bee organics, her company has continued to expand and grow in a short time.

Kenny-Etheridge opened her first store in the Highland Creek area a few years ago, but when customers kept calling up thinking she was operating a salon (instead of a natural beauty supply store) she decided to do what she had been apprehensive about.

“I needed more space, I outgrew that space and I had a need for a salon. Everybody kept asking me why I didn’t have a natural salon on site,” says Kenny-Etheridge. “And I kept saying I want to do it, but it was me being scared of taking that next step.”

In late 2012 she finally made the move. With her prior background in real estate decorating and staging homes, Kenny-Etheridge already had a vision of what she wanted her new space to look like.

Coming from her hometown in Harlem, N.Y., she went for a “boutique” environment that reminded her of stores that sold merchandise she couldn’t readily find anywhere else in town.

Now going into her third year of operation, she employs two stylists who offer a range of natural hair care services including twists, coils, caramel treatments, henna color (a natural alternative to bleaching) and $35 blowouts, to name a few. According to Kenny-Etheridge, one of her boutique’s stylists, Robin Wheatley, is “the queen of blowouts!”

Like most business owners Kenny-Etheridge has her busy and slow months, but for the most part she knows she has been fortunate to face few challenges.

“I had to figure it out on my own and one thing is I haven’t failed yet. I’m really blessed to have opened doors the first day and the store has been doing continuously good,” she says. “I can say 80 percent of the success of the store is really word of mouth.”

When she’s not working long hours running her business, Kenny-Etheridge enjoys spending weekends with her oldest daughter, Madison, and Kimoree Lee, now age 3. Also, she recently joined a gym to stay active while planning a getaway with her husband, Craig, this spring for their nine-year wedding anniversary.

In the next six years, with the support of her family, Kenny-Etheridge is planning to open three more stores in Matthews, Ballantyne and another just over the state line in South Carolina.