Self care can be hard work, but Nourish Salon & Blow Dry Suite in Lancaster simplifies the process—at least when it comes to hair.
Markiana Polite started the salon as a way to care for herself and others, regardless of ethnicity, culture, or hair texture. Plus, it was a way for Markiana to put her long-held gift to work: caring for and styling all hair types.
Markiana started in the world of hair care at a young age. She spent 13 years in salons and found they often catered to a more honed clientele.
"There wasn't an acceptance from most of those salons for people of various cultures. It was just either one or the other," she says. Markiana, an African American and Latina woman, had the idea for a cross-cultural salon bouncing in her head for seven years before she decided to bring it to fruition.
In that time, Markiana's two kids got a little bit older, her work got a little bit more strenuous, and she found she was juggling more than felt right. As she was going to school at Lancaster Bible College and studying to be a social worker in hospitals—just four classes away from earning her BA—the perfect storm of life events caused her to pivot.
"I needed time to just stop and think," she says. "Going to school full time, working a full-time job, and being the mom of two very strong-willed teenagers was just pulling me in too many directions."
Today, she has successfully built a salon that fuels her rather than causing burnout. Yes, that means setting boundaries for herself, like only accepting women ages 13 and up as clients. But it also means creating a destination she knows serves as a safe space for the women who choose to visit.
The clients she serves can bring their full selves in and feel comfortable.
1 of 4
2 of 4
3 of 4
4 of 4
Right now, Markiana is the only stylist at Nourish, making the environment a true extension of herself—but she's open to expanding her team. Like the rest of her salon, she wants that expansion to happen organically. Markiana won't hire someone just to hire them, but she's open to connecting with "nourishers," as she calls them, or people who are about the Nourish lifestyle. For Markiana, that lifestyle is holistic, organic, open, and inclusive; it's giving people the opportunity to come as they are, and letting yourself do the same.
As Markiana looks back at her journey leading up to Nourish, she realizes the salon has helped her understand all the ways she's changed and what she's learned.
"Now more than ever, I am learning to pause, to rest, and to stick to healthy boundaries," she says, reflecting on the years of burnout she dealt with before making the bold choice to start Nourish. With that rest, she has been able to develop novel ways to increase her footprint in her community.
Markiana is a licensed cosmetology instructor and a natural teacher. Inspired by young teens coming into the salon, Markiana decided to start hosting curly hair care sessions for parents and children. She says the intention for these classes is to extend that care you get into the salon at home, so parents can help their kids foster healthy, natural hair that they're proud of as they get older.
"I need to teach parents that hair grows. You just have to maintain that growth," Markiana says, adding that it's especially important for young ethnic children with thick, curly hair.
Meanwhile, Markiana is working on new treatments to add to her repertoire, which already consists of organic hair mask and scalp detox treatments, non-toxic keratin treatments, and coloring from fume-free, vegan dyes. To become more entwined with her craft, she's learning how to source and create her own products, too.
At the end of the day, Markiana knows that nourishment doesn't happen on its own. With all the ways we must care for ourselves—our skin, our food, our work-life balance, just to name a few—Nourish aims to simplify the process for one very important part of a woman's life: her hair. For Lancastrians, it's a gift that women of every creed and color get the opportunity to care for their hair the Nourish way.
Nourish Salon & Blow Dry Suite
128 E Grant St, Suite 301
Lancaster, PA 17602
