The Future of Beauty in Three Frantic Days

NEW YORK — Every year, Americans spend billions of dollars on shampoos and body scrubs and nail polishes. And for three days each March, it seems as if every last bit of it is crammed into the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center for the International Beauty Show.

Here, under thousands of rooftop glass panels, members of the trade can find everything from cutting-edge laser skin care to plain old haircutting shears. The show is limited to professionals — attendees must provide state licenses or some other proof of their qualifications to get in — and there were more than 500 exhibitors at this year’s event, which was held this past Sunday through Tuesday. The atmosphere is equal parts Old World bazaar and Las Vegas Strip.

For example, Amika, a Brooklyn-based hair-care company, had tricked out its booth in bright, paisley-swirled colors and installed a sleek stage, where a DJ and styling demonstrations drew crowds. Amika swag bags seemed to be all over the convention center floor, as were bags with the logo of Bella Lash, a beauty company focused on eyelash care.

Lash extensions seemed to be very much on-trend this year. Another company, Infinity Lash, displayed tiny strips of volume lashes, classic flat lashes, and “just normal flat lashes.” Kelly Price, who was working the Infinity booth, predicted the “Kim K lash” would be popular in 2018. She described the style as a “more sporadic look, not so uniform.”

A few feet away on an elevated platform, a volunteer lay supine as a demonstrator, wearing stilettos and a wireless microphone, applied individual hairs — one by one — to the volunteer’s lash line with the patience and dexterity of a brain surgeon.

Eyelash care was part of the calmer, spa side of the expo, reached by a short hallway separating it from the rowdier hairdressing/cosmetics/nail care “village.” The spa aisles were still packed, however, with browsers checking out jelly masks smeared across mannequin faces and sipping tiny cups of “detoxifying” waters.

Celluma, a light-therapy company, was showcasing a new technology. Inside of its booth, several attendees lay on massage tables, with tentlike, blinking-light screens over their faces, sort of like personalized discos. From a certain vantage point, the scene looked like a relaxed version of the sick bay on the Enterprise from “Star Trek.”

Patrick Johnson, a Celluma representative, explained how the space-age treatments (he claimed the product grew out of NASA research) were the future of everything from clearing up acne to dealing with opioid addiction. “Essentially, we’re up-regulating cellular activity that’s been compromised due to illness, injury, disease, or just the normal aging process,” he said — bad news, potentially, for yesterday’s goji berry extracts and collagen infusions.

Representatives from Gamma and Bross, a salon furniture and equipment company, were touting shampoo stations with motorized leg lifts and shiatsu massage functions. “It’s almost like lying in bed while getting your hair washed,” said Bradley Tornber, the operations manager at the booth.

“The Beard Spa — Men’s Modern Facial,” “Mastering Lash Artistry” and “Ban the Brassy: The Hollywood Caramel Brunette,” were some of the workshops on offer.

Roy Jay White, who was working as an educator for Hattori Hanzo Shears, but was also hoarding ideas and trends to take back to his salon, Market Street Barbers, in Louisville, Kentucky, said that when people go to the beauty show, “you’re going to get to see everything that is going to happen everywhere else in a few short months.”

At the end of the day, many visitors, notably exhausted, had collapsed on the floor amid their shopping bags, while others seemed to be taking a little too much time in the massage stations and barber chairs.

Cassandra Angelucci was seated on the lobby floor just outside the show’s entrance. Angelucci, the owner of Love and Hair Peace, a salon in Philadelphia, was pleased with her purchase of a new Marcel curling iron. But she’d been through this before, and she had the veteran wisdom not to buy everything she liked. Instead, she clutched a bag full of brochures. “So I know what to order,” she said, “and I don’t have to carry stuff.”