Inspired by her father, Joann Daly opened Little Lash & Brow Boutique in Babylon

Joann Daly grew up determined to follow her father's mantra that "the next generation has to do better than the last," she says. It was 1969 when her dad, Wai Leong Eng, then 7, emigrated from the Chinese island of Macao to Chinatown in Manhattan with his six brothers and one sister in search of a better life. He began working in construction at age 13.

“I needed my dad proud,” Daly, 37, says of her decision to open her own beauty business, Little Lash & Brow Boutique in Babylon. “I needed to give my grandmother something positive to say about her granddaughter.”

Nearly a decade after its opening, Daly, a mom of two with a third child on the way, says she felt almost an innate drive to succeed as a first-generation American.

Daly was raised in Chinatown. She studied at LIU Post and SUNY Old Westbury, graduating with a bachelor's degree in psychology. After college, she married, started a family and tried to figure out what to do next. 

“The Chinese culture is all about putting family first, valuing education at all costs and succeeding,” she says, adding that she always admired the way her father’s family stuck together and supported one another.

When she started her own business out of her home in Babylon, services for lashes and brows were mostly a side business operating out of nail salons, Daly recalls.

“I really loved skin care and became an aesthetician and I’ve always loved lashes and brows, but never thought I’d make a profession out of it,” she says. “I think I was in the right place at the right time — but with a lot of hard work.”

After nearly needing surgery after a serious infection from a bad eyelash extension, Daly decided to only hire state-licensed aestheticians and cosmetologists when she opened the boutique on Deer Park Avenue in 2013.

Daly also runs the New York Institute for Permanent Makeup training at her Babylon shop, where she offers private and semiprivate permanent makeup instruction.

Her dad, who now lives in Shirley, is unsurprised by his daughter’s business acumen, she says, given her upbringing. 

Prices range from $35 for brow maintenance to $1,300 for first-time permanent eyebrow makeup or lip blush tattooing.

Services at Little Lash & Brow include lash extensions, lash lifts, eyebrow mapping, permanent makeup — light tattooing that looks like real eyebrows — and BB Glow Korean facials.

Little Lash & Brow Boutique is at 29 Deer Park Ave., Babylon. The shop is open Tuesday to Thursday, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., Friday and Saturday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; 631-245-7028, littlelashboutique.com.