When Venetta Carraway was a young girl in South Carolina, she liked playing dress-up in adult clothing.
“Since I was a little girl, I liked to dress in my grandmother’s fancy clothes,” she said. “It was so fun and it’s something I wanted to do.”
Carraway has turned that fond childhood memory into a New Hyde Park business that enables girls aged four through 14 to dress up and experience the same kind of treatment their mothers get at beauty salons.
The Ritzy Glitzy Girlz Club provides makeup and dress-up parties at a storefront at 245 Jericho Turnpike that includes manicures, pedicures, facials and makeup at a cost of $425 to $525 for up to eight girls for the basic party package. Larger groups are priced according to the number of girls, Caraway said.
The store, which opened in February, allows the girls to be ritzy glitzy princesses, star studded divas with sparkling tops and boas, wear chic pajamas for glamy jamy parties or get the glamour treatment with makeup products that smell like ice cream. A small runway at Ritzy Glitzy Girlz Club enables the girls to play at modeling, with a photo shoot as part of the package. Parents can also bring their daughters in for individual makeovers.
“They feel like they have a place of their own. They want to do what mommy does,” Carraway said. “They like to feel pretty.”
Ritzy Glitzy Girlz is open Wednesday through Sunday, with parties typically scheduled Friday through Sunday, she said.
Carraway also brings her services to homes, where she first developed the idea of the Ritzy Glitzy Girlz Club.
The business, which started by Carraway and her three sisters-in-law six years ago, staged parties for girls out of a van brought to people’s homes under the name On-the-Go Glam Spa for Girls.
Carraway, who lives in Bellerose with her husband and two children, said she was aware of similar businesses in the New York metropolitan area and decided “to test the waters.”
“I was out on a wing and a prayer. It was a hit,” Carraway said.
Formerly an administrative assistant in doctor’s offices in Great Neck and Lake Success, Carraway said she’s always had the impulse to run her own business.
“I’ve always had the entrepreneurial things going on,” she said.
At 12 years old, Carraway said, she delivered Avon products that her grandmother would order. She also sold ice cream at her house that her mother would buy.
Based on the success of On-the-Go Glam Spa for Girls, Carraway said she opened “Ritzy Glitzy Girlz Club” in February on her own.
She said she thought a location on heavily trafficked Jericho Turnpike in New Hyde Park would be a good location for her business.
“There’s nothing on this side of Long Island that does this,” Carraway said.
Carraway said that while most of her clients come from the local area, some come from as far as Brooklyn, the Bronx and Manhattan.
Apart from giving young girls the experience of making girls feel good about how they look, Carraway said she also pays attention to their character development and encourages them to say in school.
She said she sometimes gets questions from parents about making girls appear too mature, but Carraway – a parent of a five-year-old girl – said she isn’t trying to make the youngsters look sexy.
“Our dress-up stuff is kid-friendly,” she said, with no midriff tops, form-fitting outfits, or red lipstick and nail polish.
Carraway said she also seeks suggestions from parents for the parties she puts on.
“It’s all about having fun. It’s not about putting superficial ideas in children’s heads,” she said.
