Section 01 / How It Began
The Story Of Erothots
Two people who had never met, working on opposite ends of the same problem, discovering they had independently arrived at the same complaint about their own industry.
Sthefany Maia was writing about fashion, beauty and lifestyle as an artist first and a writer second, testing everything she covered because she could not bring herself to recommend something she had not used. Ellamae Rennison was writing skincare and hairstyling guides, and had reached the same conclusion by a different route: that most beauty content is assembled from press releases and product descriptions, and that readers can tell.
They found each other through their work rather than through anybody introducing them. The first conversation was, by both accounts, mostly complaining. The second was about what a beauty publication would look like if the only rule was that you had to have actually done the thing before you wrote about it.
Erothots began as that publication. It became a studio because readers kept asking the same question at the end of every guide, which was where they could go and have it done properly. Answering that question honestly turned out to require opening somewhere themselves.
The studio inherited the publication's only rule, translated into practice. Everything we do is written down and published, including the parts most salons leave vague, because a standard nobody can check is not a standard.
01
The Shared Complaint
Two writers, both frustrated that beauty advice was being written by people who had never tested it. Both had already stopped accepting that as normal before they met.
02
One Rule, Agreed Early
You have to have done it before you write about it. It sounds obvious and it rules out the overwhelming majority of what gets published in this industry.
03
The Question From Readers
Every guide ended with the same message 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.
04
Opening The Studio
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.
05
Publishing The Standards
Pressure agreed on a scale. Spatulas never double dipped. Flash tested bridal makeup. The full booked time on the table. All of it written on the service pages so anybody can hold us to it.
Rhode
Sally Beauty
Glossier
MCoBeauty
Poppy & Pout
DIME