Drinking and Drying

Beware the woman with a blow-dry. She walks taller, negotiates tougher and can blind opponents with a toss of her freshly coifed locks. Such is the thinking behind Drybar, a new chain of high-concept salons in Los Angeles that caters solely to women who skip the cut and color for a simple shampoo and mane styling.

"You see this amazing metamorphosis that goes beyond their appearance," says Drybar co-founder Alli Webb, who conceived the idea after operating a mobile hair service for two years. But when Webb went to her older brother, Michael Landau, for business advice, she quickly inherited an ambitious partner. Landau, a former marketing exec at Yahoo!, foresaw a Drybar empire. "Women either had to go to a high-end salon for a very expensive blow-out or to one of those discount chains," he says. "There was a big hole in between."