One-stop-shop: how this luxury salon is modernizing braiding

Imagine a serene and welcoming salon where you can unwind, relax, and be pampered. There’s high-speed Wi-Fi, tea, popcorn, and good vibes. You can focus on getting your hair shampooed, blow-dried, and braided with premium protective braids. Before Swella Braid Bar came on the scene, this experience wasn’t easily available for people with textured hair.  

When co-founders Brooke Hill and Zanbria Asante started Swella as a pop-up in Atlanta in 2022, they were inspired to solve a problem they saw in the market. Getting your hair braided usually means washing your hair at home, buying the braiding hair from a beauty supply store, and going to someone else’s home for the service—which can last up to six hours. Brooke and Zanbria knew they could change the status quo and make things more convenient and comfortable for customers. And that’s exactly what they did. 

It’s safe to say their mission to provide customers with qualified braiders, the latest technology, high-quality salon products, and a standard of what it means to go to a salon for braiding—all in a luxurious setting—was a huge success. After the original Swella pop-up launched in 2022, it was only a matter of months before the 1,200 square foot flagship location in Atlanta opened in 2023. And it wasn’t much longer before they decided a second location was in order. 

This May, with help from an Open with Faire grant, Brooke and Zanbria opened a beautiful second location in Charlotte, North Carolina and got it stocked in no time so they could focus on what matters most—making their customers happy. 

Creating a comfortable space where customers feel seen

Centering textured hair is the heart of Swella’s mission, but Swella is about more than the braiding itself. Brooke and Zanbria wanted to make braiding more accessible, consistent, and high-quality for Black women and folks with textured hair. More than anything, they want their space to be a comfortable and luxurious experience. Since many braiders work out of their homes, women with textured hair often miss out on the comfortable setting, licensed cosmetologists, and extra perks that come with a high-end salon experience. 

“First and foremost, we wanted to provide a space where the curly/textured-hair woman was at the center of that conversation, and when she walked in, she felt at home and the people behind the chair knew how to manage her hair,” says Brooke. “When you think about textured haircare, we don’t have a lot of spaces where we walk in and people just get it or know what to do.” 

In describing the atmosphere, Brooke says they wanted their salons to feel light, airy, and fun. They also want the space to feel welcoming for customers at all ages and stages in life who want a light and freeing hairstyle. “As a kid, my mom constantly kept me in braids, and all I knew is that when I had braids, I could run in the rain or go swimming,” she says, “so I associate braids with a very low maintenance style for a go-getter or for a kid who just wants to swim.”

The new Charlotte location also boasts a big mirror where happy customers often stop to take a selfie with their new braids. “I remember when we were designing the space, our designer was like, we need this mirror—it’s the most beautiful gigantic mirror, [and so many] customers take pictures there,” says Brooke. “It’s just a testament that when you walk in, we want you to feel seen. As soon as you step in and on your way out, you literally see yourself, and I think that’s a testament to what we’re building.” 

The stylists at Swella also make a big difference in the experience for customers, since they are able to adapt to whatever the client needs. They often cater to working women, who might like to take meetings or work on their laptop, as well as clients who want to feel pampered in a luxurious setting. They even offer tea and snacks to make the experience that much more comfortable. “I think we just start to build the trust from the second that they walk in to the second that they walk out,” adds Zanbria. “So a huge portion is just the culture that we have in our salons, and what we’ve built has helped us build that trust with our clientele.”

Solving a problem in the market 

Swella is a modern braid bar that does everything in one place: they provide the braiding hair, they wash and dry hair, and they employ vetted stylists in a comfortable and beautiful space. But what truly sets Swella apart is how it solves a problem that Brooke and Zanbria saw in the market. They make the braiding experience more accessible, convenient, and high-quality by offering a one-stop-shop, licensed cosmetologists, the latest technology, and special attention to hair health. 

Part of the problem was that braiding is not often taught in the licensed cosmetology industry. According to Brooke, 32 out of 50 states do not require a cosmetology license to braid hair, so in many states you cannot shampoo or blow dry hair as a braider, necessitating the “wash day” for women who are preparing to get their hair braided. Swella alleviates this problem by offering both licensed cosmetologists and vetted braiders at their salon. 

They also offer take-down services using a technology called Unravel that automates the process. “Taking down the braids can still take anywhere from four to six hours, and it’s typically a customer doing it herself in front of two movies back to back,” says Brooke. “And so I thought this was the perfect thing to automate because it allowed us to offer a service where we wouldn’t have a ton of competition and we could alleviate the consumer from having to do that chore herself.” 

Their efforts have paid off with a growing roster of loyal clientele at both of their locations. “We’ve had really, really great feedback,” adds Brooke. “In fact, at our Atlanta location, it was going so well after we first launched that pretty soon we started to think, what does scale look like? Where would a second location be? Where are our customers traveling far and wide from to get to this location? And that’s how we landed on launching in Charlotte this past June.”

Ordering products from unique brands with ease

In addition to cultivating a welcoming space for a one-stop braiding experience, Swella also sells an array of salon products from unique brands, so customers can care for their braids long after they walk out of the salon. Brooke and Zanbria appreciate that Faire’s low order minimums make it easy to try different products without committing to huge orders until the stylists (and customers) have had a chance to vet them. Faire also has well-known beauty products that they’re already familiar with. 

“There are some products that we know and love that we immediately started purchasing from Faire, like PURE O Gel,” says Brooke. “I also love that beauty supply stores are on Faire, because we can get products that we know and love, even if the direct relationship isn’t there.”

They also love that you can shop by brand values using filters for Black-owned and woman-owned products. “We try really hard to make sure all of the products in our salon are at minimum woman-owned, but we really aim for Black woman-owned,” says Brooke. In this way, Faire makes it easy for Brooke and Zanbria to make sure all their products align with their mission. 

“With Faire we basically said, okay, based on both the reviews and the minimums that are required—aiming toward those that have lower minimums to keep our cash flow as a salon—and then looking at the Black-owned and woman owned categories, we have drilled down a list of products that we think are perfectly aligned with Swella,” says Brooke.

Empowering Black woman entrepreneurs—including the women behind the chairs of their salons—is another important part of Swella’s mission. In addition to offering braiding and take-down services, their vision for the future is to provide braiders with a career trajectory that could ultimately lead to them owning their own braiding business. This can help solve another problem in the market: braider burnout. “We’ve given them the blueprint on how to be a profitable hair braiding business and they can kind of just follow a rule book, but they would no longer have to be doing the work themselves,” says Brooke “They can more so be a teacher of the work, a facilitator of the work” 

Open with Faire—the program that helps new store owners successfully open with $2,500 to $20,000 in interest-free, 60-day payment terms—empowers new businesses like Swella to get the inventory they need so they can focus on what matters most.

Are you ready to let Faire help you create your own community-shifting independent boutique? Sign up for Open With Faire today!