The Beauty Loft

Jessica Lhota opened her beauty supply store just before her 17th birthday last October and has already moved to a larger location.

The Beauty Loft moved from its small quarters - 400 square feet - in downtown's Union Street Station to a 1,200-square-foot store in Butler Plaza to make room for more merchandise and ease crowding, Lhota said. The address is 3256 SW 35th Blvd., next to McAlister's Deli and Ada's Clothes Repair.

"I was ready for road frontage. I was ready for high-profile, so that's why I moved to Butler," she said. "The support I've gotten from my customers proved to me that I absolutely moved to the right place."

She is home-schooled by her mother, Ann Lhota, who said the store has a following of customers that includes professional women and homemakers who consult Jessica for her advice. Some of that advice can be found at her Web site, www.beautydiary.net.

"My two main customer groups right now are the younger women, sorority girls age 18 to 25 that go to UF, and a surprisingly large number of women I'd say are ages 35 to 55 who maybe have used the same kinds of cosmetics their entire life, since they were 16 years old," Jessica Lhota said. "I make them comfortable. I teach them all about the brand so if they do decide to switch over it's a good experience."

Lhota gets a lot of comments from people who don't believe she's 17 or say she can't own a business at her age.

"I say, 'Oh really? Watch me.'"

Rather than questioning her credibility, she said a lot of women prefer her fresh perspective.

"It's not your old-school opinion that you might get at a department store," she said. "I don't work for any of these companies, so I'm not biased. I can be honest."

The Gainesville Area Chamber of Commerce held a ribbon-cutting Friday. Beauty Loft held raffles to raise money for the family of Gainesville Police Department Lt. Corey Dahlem, who was fatally struck by a vehicle April 3 after the University of Florida national basketball championship celebration

"While some girls her age are leafing through Seventeen and CosmoGirl! magazines, exploring skin care products and makeup options, Jessica Lhota is gleaning advice from business associations and following trends in Women's Wear Daily.
    Lhota - who on Thursday turns 17 - has taken a lifelong interest in skin and hair care products and turned it into The Beauty Loft, a small shop in the loft perched over Calzatura clothing store in Union Street Station.
    The three walls of the upstairs are lined with bath and skin care products, cosmetics, brushes, makeup and lotions. The energetic Lhota proudly proclaims that all of her products - there are 18 brands - are found in North Central Florida only at her store.
    "Students who come here from the big cities are ecstatic to find they can get these here," she said, referring to brands such as Nyakio, DuWop, Urban Decay, Kaponga Nuts and Bare Escentuals. "These are very popular with hip young women and the sororities."
    She and her mother, mentor and home-school teacher Ann Lhota, scouted lots of places to locate a store.
    "But this (Union Street Station) is absolutely the best place," Jessica Lhota said. "I made a really, really good decision to open here. It only took two weeks to convince me of that.
    "This is a trend-based business, and there are young, trendy people walking around here all the time, day and night," she said. "The walk-in traffic, particularly on home game days, is pretty amazing.
    "We want to be in the center of things, and we're right in the middle of the action," she said. She's so confident that she will succeed in her business that she took out a year's advertising in Gainesville's INsitemagazine.
    As a young entrepreneur, she seems to have done the right things. She's researched various organic and healthy beauty products since she was a little girl. She's been trained in the use and content of all the products in her lineup by the companies themselves. She has designed and regularly updates her own Web site, www.beautydiary.net, which describes not only her inventory, but the beauty industry at large.

She says she's always been interested in entrepreneurship and reads the business section of The Sun every day. She's a member of the Union Street Station tenants association and has plans to attend Gainesville Area Women's Network meetings to broaden her connections. The Beauty loft is open 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday; noon to 5 p.m. Monday; noon to 9 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday; and noon to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Her grand opening is being celebrated Friday and Saturday."