Villa Salon & Spa: “the best-looking salon in Westlake”
Article published in The Daily Texan - Oct 8 2010
Written by: Reshma Kirpalani
On any given stressful day of the week for a UT student, the drive to Westlake is peaceful - cathartic - with the windows locked tight against the relentless, mid-afternoon sun and the airco on full-blast. The road is windy and leads to a veritable sanctuary: Villa Salon and Spa. This new, locally-owned salon, which opened on June 1st, features a sleek, upscale interior, specialized services including haircuts, skincare wellness, massage therapy and bridal services, and an experienced, friendly stuff.
Upon entering the salon, my hair in a tumble and my eyeliner slipping off my face, co-owner Pascale Khoury Jbeily greets me with large blue eyes and a bright smile. She is a mini fashion doll. A mother of two whose trim waist-line is an unsolved mystery. Jbeily happily escorts me through the “best-looking salon in Westlake,” as she describes it, and into my private room where esthetician Heather Bird and candle-scented relaxation awaits.
Heather Bird is a small miracle. Her fingers detach worry from my bones as she gently massages my shoulders and neck - a part of her signature facial. Before we got started, she asked me questions about my skin type to tailor her regiment to my specific needs. Bird put me at ease immediately and had me shucking off my clothes, donning a robe and laying down in anticipation for the best facial in town. Cut to the part where my bones are jelly and all of the pounding worries from the past week have somehow slipped out the backdoor of my brain. For the moment, I am coddled in comfort. Bird also thoroughly cleans my pores, using state of the art tools such as the “high frequency,” which uses high frequency light to kill bacteria and reduce redness and swelling during facial extractions.
My next stop in the Villa Salon and Spa relaxation train is a stylish haircut by co-owner Ati Jbeily. Ati is finely attuned to the business of cutting and styling hair: he doesn't miss a beat. Even while he slips out hilarious one-liners that have me cracking up, he carefully and nimbly lathers up my hair with shampoo and conditioner wrapping me in a subtle, sweet-smelling aroma. Then, I am handed a glass of white wine while we have a short conversation about the hairstyle I want. After months of growing it out from a quick experiment with a tightly cropped boy-cut, I stress that I don't want more than half an inch off of my hair, and then hold my breadth to see if Ati is scissor-happy. He isn't. He quickly discerns the texture of my unruly black hair and soon it is cut, straightened and styled into something out of a Vogue.
At the end of my experience at Villa Salon and Spa, I feel like an improved version of myself: my skin glistens anew and soft side-bangs compliment the contours of my face, the shape of my eyebrows, and my wide smile.
Local husband and wife owners and die-hard UT Longhorns fans are a tribute to perseverance and an entrepreneurial spirit. Originally from Lebanon, the couple met as young ingénues in Canada. "When I married Ati, he was a yellow cab driver with a talent for hair," Pascale says. "He told me that he always cut his family and friends’ hair in his family’s living room." After 25 years of extensive training at the likes of Baldwin Beauty School and Tony & Guy, Ati now enjoys cutting and styling clients in his own salon - the scene of one of his first contract jobs in Austin.
"Instinct told him: I’m going to be working here someday, I’m going to own this place someday. And somehow he lands back into the same building," Pascale says about her husband. "This place has been a spa three different times and I think the third time is the charm."
It certainly was for this satisfied client.
