Nice hair, Mr. Mayor
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Mayor’s pricey hair and makeup: In one year, Brandon Johnson's campaign has spent $30K
Mayor Brandon Johnson’s latest campaign-finance report lists a $4,000 payment from his political fund to a Palatine beauty salon, a March 27 expenditure it shows was for “event expenses.”
Hearing that came as a surprise to Anthony Jones, who owns Anthony Jones Salon in the northwest suburb. He says he never got that money, nor would he have had any reason to because he’s never done any work for Johnson or his campaign.
“I’d love an extra $4,000, but we never got any money from them,” Jones say. “Nobody from the campaign has ever been in my salon.”
Asked about that, the Johnson campaign’s Bill Neidhardt says the report was a mistake.
“The vendor that does our expenditure reports, we gave them the name of the business” for the disclosure filing made to the Illinois State Board of Elections, “and they wrote down the wrong one,” he says.
The report should have shown the money was spent with AJ Styles Barber & Beauty Salon, 6624 W. North Ave., according to Neidhardt, who says the mayor’s campaign filing “will be amended” to say that.
“Anyone who knows Brandon Johnson won’t be surprised he goes to a barber shop on the West Side, right outside Austin,” he says.
But some might be surprised at how much the mayor spends on personal grooming, which he pays for with money contributed by political supporters to his Friends of Brandon Johnson campaign fund: more than $30,000 in the past year, according to elections board records.
Nearly all of the money went to makeup artist and self-described “skincare enthusiast” Denise Milloy’s Makeup Majic, which is based in a home on the South Side. More than 30 payments were reported going to her in 2023 and 2024, records show.
The payments prior to Johnson’s 2023 election listed various reasons, including:
“Candidate makeup for TV.”
“Candidate makeup for debate.”
“Candidate makeup.”
“Makeup retainer.”
After Johnson took office last year, the payments to Makeup Majic have been explained only as “event expenses.”
Milloy says she’s “not at liberty” to talk about the work or the money from Johnson’s campaign.
Johnson won’t comment.
Previously, a campaign spokesman for the mayor has said Johnson is proud that many of his campaign contributions have come from “working-class people” individually and through labor unions, which have given heavily to his election efforts.
Asked about Johnson’s spending — including his having a makeup artist paid a retainer, which hair and makeup sessions were for which events and whether any of the payments were for anyone other than the mayor — Neidhardt says in a written statement: “The mayor does not spend taxpayer dollars in preparation for the many public appearances and events he attends every day.
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Looks like a 1-term mayor to me.
