Two businesses under one roof, founded by two writers on a single rule: you have to have done a thing before you write about it. This page is the whole of it, including the standards charter and the list of things we will not do.
Two businesses that happen to share a building, a phone number and a standard. On one side a fashion studio where patterns are drafted, cloth is cut and every seam is finished in our own workroom. On the other a beauty salon running twenty treatments across seven categories.
Before either of them existed there was a publication, and that order matters. Erothots started as writing about beauty and fashion, and the studio opened because readers kept asking the same question at the end of every guide, which was where they could go and have it done properly.
The publication is still here. It is why the service pages on this site read the way they do, and it is why the artist who performs a treatment is the person who helped write the page describing it.
One Roof, One Phone Number, One Standard
Sthefany Maia and Ellamae Rennison had never met. They were working on opposite ends of the same problem and had independently arrived at the same complaint about their own industry.
Two writers, both frustrated that beauty advice was being assembled from press releases by people who had never tested it. Both had already stopped accepting that as normal before they found each other. The first conversation was, by both accounts, mostly complaining.
You have to have done it before you write about it. It sounds obvious, it takes three seconds to say, and it rules out the overwhelming majority of what gets published in this industry. Everything else here is downstream of that one sentence.
Every guide ended with the same message arriving in the inbox. Where do I go to have this done by somebody who knows what you just described. There was rarely a good answer, and recommending places we had not tested would have broken the only rule we had.
The only honest way to answer that question was to become the answer. Hair, skin, brows, nails, waxing, body and a fashion studio, under one roof, staffed by people who could be named and requested rather than assigned.
The last step, and the one that made the rest of it real. Every rule we work to went onto the relevant service page in plain language, in public, where anybody can check it. That charter is below in full.
Two statements we actually use to make decisions, and what each one means on an ordinary Tuesday rather than in a brand document.
To give people advice specific enough to act on, and to deliver every service exactly as we described it. In practice that means an hour is an hour, a price on a page is the price at the desk, and a standard written on a service page is what happens in the room.
It also means saying what a treatment cannot do as clearly as what it can, including when the honest answer costs us the booking.
A studio where every standard is published, so choosing us is something you can verify rather than a leap of faith. Artists known by name, work you can see before you book, and claims that survive being asked about.
If publishing our standards pushes other studios to publish theirs, that is a good outcome for everybody, including the people who never book with us.
Every rule we work to, gathered in one place for the first time. Each one is also published on the service pages it applies to, which is what makes it checkable rather than decorative.
Every Line Above Is Also Published On A Service Page
The operating decisions behind the charter. Most of them cost us money, and each one exists because the alternative would break something above.
We take fewer bookings per day than the space could hold. That is what makes an hour an actual hour and what stops anybody being rushed through a treatment they paid full price for.
Tuesday and Wednesday, genuinely closed rather than quietly staffed. Saturday finishes at two. It makes booking harder and it is the reason nobody here is working tired.
No walk in slots. Every booking is confirmed in writing with the treatment, the duration and the name of the artist on it, so there is nothing to negotiate on the day.
Artists are not paid to sell you anything. It removes the entire reason a salon would recommend a treatment you did not need, and it is why nothing is pushed at the desk.
Every service page on this site was built with the person who performs that treatment, alongside the editorial team. It is slower than writing them from research and it is the only version worth publishing.
Not a form that disappears. Sthefany and Ellamae read feedback themselves and answer it themselves, and nothing is reported as dealt with unless it actually has been.
A short list, published deliberately. Every refusal below is a direct consequence of something in the charter, and each one costs us bookings.
Sthefany Maia is an artist first and a writer second, which shows in how she approaches beauty. She leads the editorial side and holds the line on the content rule, which in practice means being the person who asks whether we have actually tested the thing we are about to recommend.
Ellamae Rennison writes the guides people actually follow rather than the ones people save and never open. She builds every service page alongside the artist who performs the treatment, which is why they read the way they do.
Sixteen artists work across hair, skin, makeup, brows, nails, waxing, body and the fashion studio. Every one of them is listed by name with their disciplines, and every one can be requested when you book.
Four things we are working toward, written down here so you can hold us to them the same way you can hold us to the charter.
Growing the team without diluting anything. Every new artist is qualified, insured, named on the site and comfortable working to standards published in public where anybody can check them.
A page for every service with its full price list, its standards, its contraindications and the things it cannot do. Most are written. The rest are being built with the artists who perform them.
If publishing a hygiene charter pushes other studios to publish theirs, that is a better outcome for the people in this area than us keeping it as a competitive advantage.
The publication continues, with the same rule and the same refusals. Nothing gets recommended here because somebody sent it to us, and anything gifted is disclosed in the piece.
Patterns Drafted And Cloth Cut In Our Own Workroom
Tell us the service, roughly when suits you, and whether you would like a particular artist. We reply the same day on any day we are open, and every quote is confirmed in writing before a slot is held.
