By: Nate Carsten
You may be wondering what happens when money is earned by someone of an earnest, kind, and hardworking spirit? I present one such person: Andrea Klein. She is the owner of Beau Visage Spa, her new Liberte Foundation for women, and above all an entrepreneur.
Beau Visage is a spa, an oasis, where one can pay to find time to relax, feel beautiful, and liberate themselves. It is located at 218 W Main Street, Urbana, IL. More important than their services though, is how Beau Visage came to be. It all started from an ember of desire.
Andrea Klein started life safe and grateful. Her parents loved her, she never had to struggle, and she had faith in the plan laid out for her. That was at first, at least. Though life was easy, it was stifling. Her background was one forged in faith of the patriarchy. Why worry about getting a higher education or starting a business when the days of the end are upon us, and God’s work needs completing. If she had been born a man, getting a higher education would have been more tolerable as she would have to be the head of a family one day.
Science had always piqued her curiosity. After getting a job as a medical transcriber and asking every question under the sun to any doctor with time, she decided she wanted to be a doctor. But she married at 19, with a husband able to support their upcoming family. Her husband worried if she went to medical school, who would raise the children? She was 36 when she came to the compromise of beauty school to satiate her yearning. After 9 months of learning and a year of practice, she was ready to manifest what she always knew: money equals freedom.
Her first workspace was a small room in the back of a salon on Neil Street, where rent was $500 a month. It was just her and her creativity to fight for a spot in relevancy. Times were good, the clientele was growing, and soon she needed to shed the pupa of her first location and fly on. She planted herself in a cute 1940’s house off Prospect, built-in mind that a woman’s office was only the kitchen and flowered with beautiful irony. She renovated its different rooms for different services: micro-blading, facials, waxing, etc. If you couldn’t guess it already, she outdid and outgrew her shell again. With more clientele, more employees, a new Urbana location with the trademark pink neon sign, she had metamorphosed into a dragon free to roam, self-sustaining flight on manifested clouds of will.
That could be the end of the story, and a good one at that: woman fights back against caging beliefs to establish herself as a creative in the beauty industry, has a ring to it. She is far from done. With freedom for herself, she wants to see other aspiring individuals succeed. Thus came, Liberte, a word she embodies with her actions.
Her newest venture is Liberte Skincare Company, her aim is to simplify one’s beauty routine into the perfect travel safe package. She wants to bring the spirit of her spa, home; for the times when staying home is the only option, especially in the times of COVID.
With thoughts of the women who’ve supported her, she is using proceeds from Liberte to support her new non-profit, Liberte Foundation for Women. This nonprofit serves to provide grants to women who want to start or sustain a small business. She found Liberty through owning her own business, her own life, and her desire to support women who are yearning to create their freedom in a similar way. The goal is provide $1 million a year in grants nationwide. To give back to the community that has supported her, Andrea is pledging the first $100,000 in grants to Champaign-Urbana women-owned businesses.
I am moved by her story and by her message. My mom, the entrepreneur, started her own therapy office and I couldn’t be prouder of the freedom she has granted herself.
For students wanting the same liberty, Parkland has an opportunity for you. Next semester the college will introduce CobraVenture. You can be awarded up to $3,000 for a jump start in your business idea. To find out more check the Parkland website.
I asked Andrea, “What advice would you give a younger you?” With a nostaligic laugh she said, “Don’t ask permission, find what gives you freedom and take it.”
Life is hard, there will be opportunities for you, keep that fire in your belly, and rage on Cobras, become the dragons I know you are.