Former Mrs. Venezuela opens Grove beauty
Biscayne Bay Tribune Online BY LAURA SEBASTIAN
Medusa Beauty Salon owner Mayglet Daly says the name for her shop stemmed from a day at the beach with her husband. As a young girl growing up in Venezuela, Mayglet Daly loved all things to do with beauty and could usually be found experimenting with makeup, new hairstyles and the latest in fashion trends. But her experiments didn’t end with herself; soon everyone from family to friends would come to her for makeovers.
And so it seemed natural that this girl would one day not only win a beauty contest — she was Mrs. Venezuela in the 2001 Mrs. World pageant — but would make her living in the business of beauty. In April, one of Daly’s dreams came true when she opened the Medusa Beauty Salon in Coconut Grove at 2809 Bird Ave.
“I’d wanted to own a salon since I was a little girl,” Daly said. “So this is wonderful and exciting and suits me perfectly.”
And Daly, 36, certainly has found a perfect fit. She earned her beautician’s license in Venezuela in 1987 and, after two years of studying here, will soon have her license in America.
But why the name Medusa — a mythological creature known for serpent-entwined hair and a face so hideous the sight of it would turn men to stone – for a beauty salon? Daly said the name came to her after a day on the beach in Miami with her husband.
“It was humid and I’d been swimming and my hair had dried all frizzy and was springing every which way,” said Daly. “My husband took one look at me and said, ‘You look like Medusa’ and I thought that was funny, so that’s where I got the name.”
Perhaps the name is, in a sense, ideal. A trip to Daly’s salon, open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., will turn any modern day Medusa into a beauty. With three employees on staff, the salon offers an array of services at affordable prices. Men, women and children are welcome, and the services offered range from haircuts, hair coloring, permanents and straightening, to waxing, manicures, pedicures, and even professional make up sessions. To encourage new customers, Medusa also offers special savings on Tuesday and Wednesday when men’s haircuts are $10, kids’ haircuts are $6 and manicure/pedicures are $20.
Daly first visited Miami in 1990. “I loved the opportunity I saw here,” she said. “So I spent the next four years working here at the Venezuela Air Force’s Office of Acquisitions. I was a buyer of airplane parts.”
Though she knew she would eventually settle permanently in Miami, in 1994 Daly went back to Venezuela to attend college, while simultaneously working in the purchasing department of a tire manufacturing company. She graduated from Venezuela’s University of Carabobo in 1999 with a degree in human resources and a feeling of gratitude for being able to experience college life.
“Many people in my country don’t have the money to attend college, it’s not even an option for them,” Daly said. “So it was something I felt lucky to be able to do.” It was while attending school and working at the tire manufacturing company that Daly also met her husband, Victor, who was then employed as a supplier for the Venezuelan branch of DuPont. The couple met when he came to her manufacturing company one day to make a sales call.
“I guess he was a seller and I was a buyer,” she said with a laugh.
The couple married in 1995 and a few years later Daly’s life took a glamorous turn when a friend suggested she enter the Mrs. Venezuela pageant, which led to the Mrs. World Pageant. The pageant is for married women — young wives, mothers and even grandmothers are eligible to enter — from around the world.
“At first I said no when it was suggested I enter the contest, but then I thought it might be fun, and it was. I met so many wonderful women,” Daly said.
After being crowned Mrs. Venezuela 2001, Daly headed for Las Vegas to compete against women from 49 other countries in the Mrs. World Pageant. Though it was Mrs. India who ended up winning that year, Daly said she had a wonderful time in Las Vegas, where her two-week stay was filled with sightseeing, rehearsals and, finally, with the televised pageant itself.
“I was honored to be Mrs. Venezuela,” Daly said. “But I never had any intention of going on to compete in other pageants. My real dream was to concentrate on my husband, to have children and, eventually, to own my own business.” With the recent birth of her first child, son Jesus Gabriel, and the opening of Medusa’s Beauty Salon, it seems all of Daly’s dreams have come true.
“This is a wonderful time for me,” she said. “I love everything about owning and running the salon. I even did the design and decoration of the salon myself so each aspect of the business is very much mine. But my favorite part of it is making people happy and helping them to feel good about themselves.” For more information, call 305-443-9776.