Sisters expand their business, add Nasos Beauty Supply and Boutique to downtown Sterling

STERLING – Alexis Lerma-Khanbhai and Natikka Lerma, co-owners of Nasos Salon downtown, used to send clients either out of town or online for some hair care products.

Now they send them right around the block.

The sisters opened Nasos Beauty Supply and Boutique on Dec 19 at 20 E. Third St., right around the corner from their salon at 12 E. Fourth St.

“Our salon is small, it’s a pretty small space, and salons carry professional-line products,” Lerma-Khanbhai said. “Those can be pricier. We wanted to bring a beauty supply store to the area for people who want to learn about hair care, different curl textures and curl patterns, and also at a very good price.

“We wanted to be able to add different products, such as braiding hair and wigs, and just have more of a variety that you would see out of a salon.”

“Supply stores like ours, they’re not very common in small towns,” Lerma added. “They’re more common in Davenport or Rockford or Chicago. They typically cater more to ethnic hair, and have a bunch of lower-priced items for everyone who can come and shop.”

In addition to hair care products, the boutique offers lotions, face masks, wigs, headbands, lip glosses, eyelashes and even clothes.

“During the pandemic we both had downtime, so we came up with a business plan to be able to offer those products here that they had been going out of town for or online,” Lerma said. “I can directly send my clients from the salon here, and that’s how we’ve been growing the business so far.”

Opening the supply store amid the pandemic has come with challenges.

“The first thing that stuck out to us as a difficulty was trying to secure any type of funding,” Lerma said. “We didn’t take out a loan for the salon, so we thought we’d take one out for this, but it’s very difficult during a pandemic. Now they’re trying to bail businesses out, so they’re more focused on that than start-up businesses.

“Another challenge was to be able to get work done, because everyone’s delayed. It took Nicor forever to get here. It’s still taking Comcast forever to get here. There’s a lot of delays because of the pandemic.”

Then there was the matter of stocking the store. Suppliers, too, have been affected by COVID-19, and that has meant delays for their customers.

“We had some products that we wanted to get here, and it kept getting pushed out,” Lerma-Khanbhai said. “It ended up being a month and a half to get some things here. Being able to restock and not knowing when the next shipment is coming in, that’s been an issue. COVID has really messed up the supply chain of our beauty products.”

A grand opening is slated for sometime this spring, possibly in March, after COVID-19 hopefully has slowed down a bit. In the meantime, Nasos Beauty Supply and Boutique (nasosbeautyinc@gmail.com) is open from noon to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, and from noon to 4 p.m. Sunday.