In 2024, there’s an app for almost everything. Exercising. Starting a car. Even crawfish prices. But when AnnaBeth Guillory was in the throes of a beauty emergency just hours before she was scheduled to take maternity pictures, she discovered there wasn’t an app to help her out of her predicament.
“My appointment got canceled 30 minutes before,” she recalls. “I was so frustrated and in such a bind, I couldn’t stop thinking about how many artists, stylists and salons there are in town. Why was it not easier to connect with someone that might have an opening?”
As the co-founder of Blush Beauty and Blowdry Bar in Lake Charles, Guillory could see both sides of the problem. For the client, it’s daunting to think about calling salon after salon to try to get an appointment for a given service at a specific time, especially if it’s last minute. And for the stylists and salons, it’s difficult for them to connect with that someone who would love to take their available appointments.
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Enter BeautyFindr. The recently launched app is the result of Guillory’s efforts to solve both sides of the beauty problem. Beautyfindr, which Guillory conceptualized with the help of LSU’s E.J. Ourso College of Business and designed with app development company Vigilus, aims to connect clients and service providers with ease.
Through the app, clients are able to request certain hair, makeup, lash, tanning, nail or skin services, and local providers with openings can respond to the request. And for situations like Guillory’s that inspired the app’s creation, there is a special “SOS” option that allows users to request urgent appointments.
“In a lot of situations, this is a way for a stylist or salon to get a foot in the door and establish a relationship with someone new,” Guillory notes, adding that booking and payment all happen outside of the app through a given provider’s primary channels. “Especially when you want to try a new, special service for the first time, the app helps you find that person that is right for you.”
Guillory envisions the app helping not just locals, though, but also those who come in town for events like Mardi Gras balls. With a rating system dependent on only in-app reviews, BeautyFindr aims to connect people with well-established businesses that they can trust with everything from event glam to permanent makeup.
“I want people to have a good experience,” Guillory says. “And, with the rating system, I want to be able to reach out if someone isn’t having that positive experience. That’s why it was important to me that clients could not only rate businesses but businesses could rate clients as well.”
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BeautyFindr launched last month, with 40 businesses already working with Guillory and her team. But the future of the app, Guillory says, is much bigger than Baton Rouge.
“It was important to me to start in my hometown—to get down those roots and get all of that initial feedback that is so important,” Guillory explains. “I would love to explore all of Louisiana next. Then Texas. And ultimately, one day maybe, nationwide. It’s just about making those connections, and that’s always my goal.”
This story originally appeared in inRegister. To keep up with inRegister, subscribe to the free inRegister@Home e-newsletter here.