Le Salon Nowel, Astoria

For more than 12 years, the owner of Le Salon Nowel worked in a French salon in Manhattan, mastering many unique and fashion-forward hair techniques. When she opened her own salon in 2006, she brought those skills with her to Queens, creating a list of services ranging from formaldehyde-free Brazilian blowouts to French-style mani-pedis. The salon's stylists can conquer all hair needs, from adding color and dimension with highlights, or defrizzing locks with Japanese thermal hair straightening, somehow getting around the sun's vice-like patent on heat. The staff also continues their perfection hold on such face treatments as yellow peeling, a chemical peel that sloughs away dead skin cells to beautify faces along with newly renewed 'dos.