Darby Street is known for not only its incredible selection of cafes, bars, restaurants, and retail boutiques, but over recent years it’s become a bit of a go-to for the beauty industry!

With the arrival of The Beauty Bar on Newcastle’s iconic strip in February 2020, this local gem of a clinic has been meeting the skin and beauty needs of locals with its grand selection of treatments and services.

With local gal, Alexandra Celik at the helm, The Beauty Bar is one of our city's one-stop-shop for all things beauty and skin. From traditional waxing services to those top-tier premium facials and everything in between, The Beauty Bar is quite literally what the name suggests; a bar for all things beauty.

Having spent her late teens and early 20s working as a professional dancer, Alex fell upon the beauty industry by chance quite late in the game in comparison to most.

“When I was living in Sydney, I did a make-up course and every weekend I would be there. I loved it and started questioning whether I could do that all the time. I slowly moved away from dance and the more I got into the beauty industry I started to realise that my passion for dance just wasn’t there anymore.

“That’s when I decided to go to beauty school, and I realised pretty quickly I was really good at it! I was 22 when I went to Beauty School which is considered quite late in the beauty industry. I definitely wasn’t a mature-age student, but for the beauty industry, I was definitely amongst the oldest in my cohort,” Alex shared.

Stepping straight into the workforce, Alex spent a year working in clinics across Newcastle before realising her dream was to not only work in the beauty industry but to run her own business.

“I went through a bit of a personal growth moment. I just woke up one day and knew I wanted to give opening my own business a crack. I wanted to do things a certain way, and when you’re working for someone else, you don’t have that flexibility.”

Come late 2019, well before the concept of COVID-19 was even on our radar, Alex was full steam ahead with plans for The Beauty Bar landing keys to the Darby Street space and getting the fit out well and truly underway.

“I knew I didn’t want to do a home salon, I knew if I was going to do it, I was all in and wanted to create an entire clinic experience.”

Whilst the first few years in business may have been considered somewhat rocky due to COVID-19, this pandemic baby of a business has done nothing but thrive when their doors could be open.

“Every time we came out of lockdown, the business just took off. We’ve been really lucky to have grown and evolved organically. I genuinely never thought I would get to a point where I was busy enough to need help. But it quickly got to the point that I couldn’t even get to the phone. Then all of a sudden, two of us were too busy so we needed someone else.”

The Beauty Bar is now home to three beauty therapists; Alex, Holly, and Maddi; each bringing their own skills and experience to the table.

Interested in understanding what The Beauty Bar can actually do for you? Well, as mentioned, they’re both skin and beauty specialists, offering a vast selection of both beauty treatments and skin services, designed to complement one another.

“We combine traditional beauty services with a holistic approach to your overall skin health. We believe in no BS and want what is best for each client.”

The Beauty Bar’s Skin menu offers a grand selection of skin treatments covering enzyme peels, oxygen therapy, skin needling, LED light therapy, and their newest addition, the HydraFacial.

“The HydraFacial is similar to a Hydrodermabrasion, but it’s more of an elite version. With a standard Hydrodermabrasion, you’ll use tips that are the same tip for the entire service. With a HydraFacial, you’ll have three separate tips, each designed for every step of the treatment. That means each tip is optimised to achieve maximum results.”

“It is also completely customisable. So, it doesn’t really matter what skin type you have, we can customise the service to meet your needs.”

From eyebrows, lashes, and tanning to waxing, teeth whitening, and makeup, The Beauty Bar has all of your beauty needs. There is one service that this Darby Street clinic offers which is unique to Newcastle; the Kitty Care Facial.

“It’s basically a facial for your vulva. No one else does them in Newcastle and they’re so popular. What a lot of women struggle with are ingrown hairs and their coochie skin just isn’t happy. Technically, I knew we could do something about it but no one else was doing it and it wasn’t particularly conventional.

“It’s basically a bit of skincare for your cooch. Now, 95% of our clients won’t just get a standard Brazilian anymore, they’ll get the Kitty Care Facial too.”

Whether you’re looking to treat yourself to a little ‘me day’, are wanting to explore some skin treatment options, are desperate for some beauty services, looking to gift someone a TLC, or even want to try Newcastle’s only Kitty Care Facial, drop by The Beauty Bar and experience Darby Street’s skin and beauty oasis.