What Happened When 3 Women on Rikers Island Got Beauty Makeovers

08.10.2026, 16:38 allure.com

Three women sit in front of me, each one occupying a salon chair in a tiny room with a single shampoo bowl, and one window that faces a bare, enclosed courtyard with yellowing grass. They’re smiling, chatting, and eating pizza as they wait for their hair to set and process. We could be in any hair salon in New York City, albeit a small one, except for a few caveats: These women couldn’t enter this room until they had been scanned by a handheld metal detector and patted down. There are also armed guards right outside the door. And the mirrors aren’t really mirrors. In fact, they aren’t made of glass at all; they’re made of polycarbonate, a plastic material that mimics the look of a wonky funhouse reflector, to prevent people from shattering the surface and using broken shards as weapons. After the women’s glam session is done, they won’t be going to an event or returning to their families or children, their jobs, or even their homes. They’ll stay here, at the Rose M. Singer Center on Rikers Island, to finish out their court-ordered sentences.

The main entrance of the Rose M. Singer Center on Rikers Island.

Rosie’s, the center’s nickname, is the only facility that houses women and gender-expansive people in the notorious Bronx jail complex—the same one that’s been called the “most infamous jail in the US” due to its high rates of violence and disorder. To get into the salon at Rosie’s, first I had to check in through a trailer at the foot of the Francis R. Buono Memorial Bridge, the only way to get on and off the island. Then, after going through TSA-like security, I was escorted through three separate checkpoints where I needed to hold up a numbered badge that identified me as a visitor. Although I had gotten special permission to bring my laptop and recorder inside, I did have to leave my phone behind.

The salon is located in Rosie’s recreation area, where vocational programs like culinary lessons and cosmetology take place, as well as high school and college classes. It looks more like a school than a jail: Inspirational posters line the walls with sayings like, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail,” and many of these emphasize the importance of attending class and making it to graduation day.

Before meeting the three women, volunteers with the Beauty Beyond Bars program were warned by guards and administrators to hide scissors or sharp objects and to monitor every product that was visible in the room. “This will go missing,” one Rikers staff member warns, pointing to a row of Redken hair products neatly laid out on a small table. “It’s happened right in front of my face. The women are slicker than the men.”

Daesha Holloman, 31, before her consultation.

I made the journey here for a one-day pilot program put on by Beauty Beyond Bars, a nonprofit organization founded by 21-year-old criminal justice reform advocate Lea Nepomuceno, which seeks to deliver essential beauty and hygiene products to incarcerated people. The group has partnered with Citryne Rose, a hair salon in Manhattan, founded by hairstylist Julie Dastine, to give the three soon-to-be-released women hair transformations before they head home and re-enter society. New York-based makeup artist Maricela Saucedo is also here to help the women with their glam.

Today’s program is explicitly for women who have an impending release date, are okay with speaking to the press, and willing to be on camera for Beauty Beyond Bars’ and Allure’s social channels. According to the New York City Council, as of June 13, 2026, around 84% of the inmates on Rikers Island have not yet been convicted of a crime—they’re either held on bail or remanded to custody as they await trial. The rest, including the women in today’s program, have been convicted and are serving short sentences, typically under one year. After they were patted down, the women timidly entered the small space, sitting side-by-side in salon chairs to wait for Dastine and her two assistants to assess their hair.

Adia Charles, 28, getting her hair washed by hairstylist Shinda Pratt at the center's only shampoo bowl.

Although Nepomuceno and Dastine had introductory Zoom calls with nine potential women to discuss what they’d like to get done, the three in the salon today didn’t know they were chosen for the program until right before they were escorted into the room. “They didn’t tell us this was happening,” Daesha Holloman, 31, tells me. She’ll be released from Rikers in November.

Dastine stands behind Holloman and slowly unfurls her hijab—she’s been wearing one on-and-off for six years—revealing a knotty mass. “The only thing I have access to is shampoo and grease, and a comb that’s thinner than this,” Holloman says, pointing to an already tiny brush in front of her. There’s not much she can do to care for her hair behind bars. Dastine and her associates decide the best course of action is to give her a silk press and a trim, which results in a long bob.

Lizette Lugo, 47, had two main requests: blonde hair and false eyelashes.

Adia Charles, 28, is next; she’s worn her hair in locs for almost five years, and hasn’t been able to properly care for it since she’s been here. The locs have been dyed half red, half blonde, and Dastine decides to give Charles’s color new life today, along with a twist out.

“I’m getting out Tuesday,” says Lizette Lugo, 47, who is waiting to get her hair washed in the shampoo bowl. “I’m excited but I’m also nervous. It’s a new start.” She’s been serving time at Rosie’s for the past six months. “They see me as a house mom,” she adds. She has asked Dastine to make her blonde to cover up the grays that have grown in since she’s been here.

Charles, Holloman, and Lugo begin their makeovers.

Each woman is wearing a microphone and being filmed for social content. (Part of Beauty Beyond Bars' goal with the program is to interview the women during the services and share their stories on social media.) Although they were aware of this beforehand, they are still (understandably) tense and nervous in front of the camera at first. But as the day unfolds, Holloman, Charles, and Lugo start to open up about their lives on Rikers Island. Corrections officers near the door supervise, and Latima Johnson, press officer at the New York City Department of Correction, and Nadely Tavarez, executive director of facility program for the Rose M. Singer Center, listen in. Naturally, given the setting, the conversation turns to the inmates’ inadequate access to hygiene and beauty products.

The first step to Lugo's hair transformation is to lift her grown-in grays.

“Right now, I can’t really do much,” says Charles. “I just shampoo and condition my hair. The water is pretty hot here, so it dries out my hair.” There aren’t any oils available for her locs, only hair grease, which she says is heavy and weighs down her hair. This is something that has bothered her during the four months she’s been incarcerated: “I like to be neat, I like to keep myself together. I make sure my T-shirts are nice and white and I wash my clothes,” she says. The inmates have to do that washing by hand with homemade laundry detergent composed of deodorant and grease, but Charles thinks it’s worth the effort. “When you look good, you feel good,” she adds. “I can’t wait to get out of here and go to the nail salon and get a facial.”

Hairstylist Shonelle Lamothe bleaching Lugo's hair.

Sometimes these desires prompt ideas and action—there are plenty of ways the women of Rikers, and in jails and prisons nationwide, hack the system to make themselves feel beautiful. Some of these practices have been reported on before, such as rubbing deodorant against colored pages from magazines to make eye shadow. “They melt down the bars of Corcraft [soap] and it becomes a thick gel consistency,” Charles says. “They use that for edge control or gel.” [Editor’s note: Corcraft is a program that employs incarcerated people in correctional facilities across New York to make products such as hand sanitizer, street signs, furniture, and more, for around $0.65 an hour.]

There are also women who have picked up beauty-related skills, like threading eyebrows with tampon strings. Lugo has gotten that done a few times since being here: “Sometimes you have to give [the threader] commissary, and sometimes they do it to pass the time,” she says. “Or you make friends and they do it for you, just for one another so we look good.”

There aren’t any oils available to keep Charles' locs hydrated at Rosie's—only hair grease, which she says is heavy and weighs down her hair.

Lugo regularly wears makeup—she works as a suicide-prevention aide in her housing unit and uses the money she earns from that job to buy products from the commissary—but not every day. “I’ll take, like, two days and I won't put makeup on. I'll let my face breathe a little bit,” she says. “Foundation is like $11.” She also buys CoverGirl and L’Oreal eye shadow, mascara, and eyeliner. “They sell ChapStick and Wet n Wild lipstick,” she adds.

When it comes to hair care, though, Lugo has found her options lacking. She doesn’t wash her hair often because, she says, the shampoo available in the commissary burns her scalp. Getting her hair washed today, she adds, is a luxury. She’s also excited for a makeup artist to glam her face—she’s only ever gotten her makeup done at mall kiosks and is especially eager to put on Ardell fake lashes.

Julie Dastine adding layers to Lugo's freshly dyed hair.

Holloman and Charles are on the other end of the makeup spectrum from Lugo: Charles doesn’t generally wear much makeup, in or out of Rikers; and Holloman doesn’t think spending her commissary money on lipstick is worth it. “The foundation is not the best quality, and we use sponges that you clean with, not sponges you’re supposed to use for your face,” Holloman says, as Saucedo blends Dior foundation on her face near the only window. “So I don’t know how I would feel doing makeup here. It’s not the same as having concealer an