Best of Boston

In a landscape rife with snooty salons, Empower Beauty Co. feels like a warm hug — a nurturing environment where all women, from college students to new moms to grandmothers, can feel comfortable and beautiful. Case in point: When we called about fixing a color job botched by another salon, vivacious stylist Susan Lostimolo immediately set us at ease, sizing up the problem, intuiting the right hue to tone down brassiness, and (most important) not passing judgment. Best of all, she emailed us when our voicemail was full, just to check in. We’ve never felt more empowered.