Beauty Plus Closes, With A Party

After Denise Rogers’ husband died of Covid in May 2020, she made it a practice to stop in at Beauty Plus on lower Chapel. Not so much to buy makeup or skin creams or hair care products, but to talk with co-owner and founder Mel Hylton.

“Miss Mel just has always been there for me,” said Rogers, at a rousing retirement party outside Beauty Plus, a beauty supply store which has now closed its doors after 31 years downtown.

The celebration, emceed by News Channel 8 anchor Keith Kountz and media powerhouse Veronica Douglas-Givan last Friday, featured a stirring performance from vocalist Barbara Joyner, a host of testimonials, cake and balloons, as well as a lot of good feeling from the lunchtime crowd of 50. 

In a city proclamation, Mayor Justin Elicker called Beauty Plus, which opened in 1995, ​“an anchor in downtown New Haven” and ​“an example of hard-working small business owners and businesses that fuel the New Haven local economy and culture.” 

The personal service that distinguished the Hylton’s family stewardship at 827 Chapel — including co-owner Rudy Hylton, Mel’s late sister Liz Slyvia, and daughter Gale Hylton-Matthews — was the ​“Plus” in the store name, according to long-time customer Vivian Fripp-Elbert, pastor at Hamden’s Bethel Agape Shalom Ministry.

She recalled bringing handkerchiefs she had made to Unique Boutique, the first Black-owned beauty and barber supply shop in New Haven, on Dixwell and Henry, where Hylton worked for 21 years before opening Beauty Plus. ​“Miss Mel said ​‘How much for those?’ and I’m not good with that kind of thing, and she said, ​‘whatever you think it’s worth and that’s what I’ll do,’” she said.

Miss Mel ​“gave us beauty and pride and trust,” she went on. ​“She didn’t go up in her prices even when Covid hit, and she still was open to her people to service us.” She called Hylton and her sister Liz ​“women of integrity and character that would listen. It was counseling. It was more than a beauty salon.”

That was true for Veronica Douglas-Givan who routinely walked over to Beauty Plus while a producer at WTNH to get a breather from the newsroom. ​“When my mother was living with Alzheimer’s, Mel helped me,” she said. ​“When I got my master’s degree and said I wanted to walk across the stage with an Afrocentric sash, they didn’t just sell me a sash, they donated it to me, and when I wanted to have a child, we talked about it, and prayed about it.” 

“That’s right,” said Georgetta Jackson, who was standing in the back of the three-deep crowd. She met Hylton at Unique Boutique, she said, and followed her to Chapel. ​“She’s just a wonderful person, an asset to this community,” she said, as the late-spring sun peeked out through the clouds. ​“She likes to listen to you, she takes her time, she’ll find the right product for you. She just made you feel cared for.” 

Greg Ledovsky, a partner at the Devil’s Gear Bike & Board a few doors up, recalled shoveling snow in front of Beauty Plus. ​“The businesses around downtown, it’s a neighborhood like any other neighborhood, we help each other out, and we’ve been honored and blessed to have such warm and welcoming neighbors at Beauty Plus.” 

“Except,” said John Brehon, Ledovsky’s partner, ​“the hair tonic you sold me didn’t work,” as he took off his cap to reveal a bald head. Wild laughter ensued. 

With that, Hylton stepped forward to speak, expressing gratitude for the support of her customers and friends through the years. 

A car, passing by, honked. ​“We love you, Mel,” someone called out. Hylton waved. 

She recalled, after the owners of Unique Boutique retired, deciding to open her own shop, and dealing with ​“a lot of ​‘I don’t want you down here.’” 

“A lot of things weren’t quite right,” she said. ​“Every time we tried to open our doors, they came up with something else we had to do, a business plan, a permit, so many things, but I’m here, and it’s because of so many of you, you didn’t have to support me, but you did, and here we are.”

“Here we are,” someone shouted from the crowd.

She called the moment bittersweet. ​“I love what I do, no day is ever the same,” she said. ​“I have people that will come in, that will give me ideas, it’s been a blessing, and I would do it all over again.” 

“I’ve been here for 30 years and I was never sick in all of those 30 years,” she said. 

“God is good,” someone called out. ​“Amen.”

After thanking her niece, her daughter Gale, her grandson Elijah Thomas, and long-time supervisor Lisa Harrell, she asked for silence. ​“Please,” she said. ​“Let’s all of us learn to love one another.”