I was looking for a place to get a blowout before a wedding. Not speaking any Portuguese, I was…read morevery shy and intimidated. Beauty vocabulary is specialized and often neglected in translation tools -with hilarious results.
The staff at Bellissima were so kind (and beautiful, as you might expect!) My hair stylist took the tine to ask me questions via iPad and Google Translate! The nail aesthetician was so friendy!
I visited the salon twice while I was in Rio and would have gone more if I had the time. They sell high-end products like Kerastase (great if you want to skip on the usually damaging stuff in hotels.)
You can get your hair done and a manicure *and* a pedicure done at the same time and generally feel like, yes, this is what vacation is about.
(I highly recommend the Google Translate app and offline (!) Portuguese dictionary. It was a lifesaver.)
