The beauty industry has been growing steadily for years. Each year it seems that a new technique is discovered for use in beauty salons, day or med spas, and the choice for the public can seem overwhelming.
There are around 80,000 beauty salons in the USA, and the market value just keeps on growing. Although the pandemic caused beauty salons to have a dip, around $65 billion is generated every year, and competition can be fierce.
Choosing the right beauty salon can be tricky. Many businesses offer incentives and special offers to get people through the doors, others have lengthy lists of services, while others run specialist small salons.
How to pick the right beauty salon, and get excellent service? While it can be hard to choose, there are plenty of ways that make the search easier.
What is a beauty salon and what isn’t it?
With so many businesses offering to make you look beautiful or more handsome, it can get a little tricky when trying to differentiate between them. Beauty parlors, beauty salons, day spas, med spas, and other businesses are all trying to sell you aesthetic services, but they are all quite different.
A beauty salon is similar to a beauty parlor but may appear a little more sophisticated or larger, and have more services. A beauty parlor tends to be a more local business that offers a smaller list of specialized services. A beauty salon may be located in town or another retail area, and have more staff than a beauty parlor which may only have one or two staff.
A day spa offers many beauty treatments and many will be the same as a beauty salon, however, day spas are destination establishments and are usually used for a set of services. A client might visit a spa for the entire day, whereas an individual may only go to the salon to have their hair styled.
Medical, or med, spas are similar to day spas, except they will have qualified staff that is allowed to carry out medical beauty treatments such as botox, chemical peels, and dermal fillers.
Can a beauty salon carry out medical treatments?
Another way that the distinction between all these businesses gets blurred, is that some services can be obtained in all of them. Some beauty salons will have qualified staff that can carry out chemical peels and digital needling for example.
Regulations for what services are allowed in different beauty establishments may differ from state to state and country to country. For instance, in the UK Figura Beauty salon has qualified staff able to carry out facial peels and cosmetic tattooing, but an equivalent salon in another country, may not be able to.
What services are offered, and their licensing and accreditation is something to check when looking for a beauty salon.
How to decide on the right beauty salon for you
Looking for an excellent beauty salon can mean trekking from one to another. You might even have to visit or try a few before you find the right one, but you can at least reduce the shortlist.
There are some things you can check before you decide to take the plunge:
- How long has the salon been established?
- Ask friends for recommendations
- Check Google reviews
- Are they accredited/licensed?
- Are their staff qualified and experienced?
- Do they have before and after photos or testimonials?
- Customer service
- Are they happy to answer questions?
- Location
- Prices and special offers
- What services are offered?
- Are they using up-to-date beauty treatments and techniques?
Reviewing these areas and asking questions can help you to remove many beauty salons from your list of possibilities before you even set foot inside one. Keep reading to see why some of these are so important.
How long has the salon been established?
While a new beauty salon shouldn’t be dismissed, finding one that has been established for years is a great sign. If you live in an area that doesn’t have tourists, then a long-standing business means that they have been providing quality services to locals for plenty of time.
Ask friends for recommendations, and check Google reviews
Does a friend have a wonderful new haircut? Ask them who did it. It could be that they know a great salon and can recommend it to you, along with their favorite stylist.
Google reviews are also an invaluable source of information, especially as it seems that many people feel the need to tell the world of their good, or poor, experiences.
Are they accredited/licensed, and are their staff qualified and experienced?
Different regions will have their own accreditations, but you can search online and on the salon’s website to see what they list. Checking CIDESCO for internationally accredited salons may help, or if in the UK ask for staff qualifications such as VTCT, or Vocational Training Charitable Trust which is approved by the government.
Do they have before and after photos or testimonials?
Visual before and after results can really help to show off the quality of a salon’s work.
Customer service
When you first walk into a salon how are you made to feel? Did the receptionist greet you with a genuine smile or were they too busy playing on their phone?
The front-of-house staff can reflect the rest of the business, and if there is a lack of professionalism or interest in you, turn around and walk out.
They should be happy to answer questions and this is a good way to find out how knowledgeable they are about the services offered. There are some differences between microblading and eyebrow tattooing, do they know what they are? When you are undergoing semi-permanent, or even temporary, beauty treatments, you want to know you are in safe hands.
Location
Are they convenient for you and within a reasonable distance? It would be a shame to get some great beauty treatments and feel relaxed only to end up in a traffic jam mile from home.
Prices and special offers
Although pricing is important, be wary of it too. Cheap services might seem like a bargain but they also might mean they are struggling to get clients. Special offers should also be looked at. Although they could spell a bargain, they may also mean they are desperate for clients.
What services are offered, and are they using up-to-date beauty treatments?
Do they have the beauty treatments that you are looking for, and are they qualified to carry them out? You might be happy to find out that a salon can perform dermal filler treatments, but check they aren’t breaking any regulations.
Also, are they offering the latest beauty services? There are many beauty treatments to try out post-pandemic, and it would be a shame to settle on a salon and find out they don’t offer microblading for instance.
Summary
Finding an excellent beauty salon may take a little time but it isn’t impossible. Following the list above will definitely shorten your list of potential salons. It may also weed out some offering dubious services, or using unlicensed staff.
Once you have settled on your salon you can then be safe in the knowledge that the search was worth it, and you won’t need to do it again.
