The Cutting Room in Hove is a barbershop that has been refurbished to cater the needs and taste of its male clients. In order to create an environment that can attract gents who want to come for male grooming and relaxation, the barbershop has been designed into a gentleman’s club, which mixes both the classic and new high-tech to its décor and services.

The barbershop design is retaining a traditional feel by investing on hardwood fittings and textures, wood brown palettes, and leathered sofas. Meanwhile, the traditional has been mixed with the features of modern styles and technologies, which can been found on the custom-made pieces of salon furniture such as luxury motorized barber chairs, ergonomic basins, and bespoke cabinets.

In order to offer extra comfort and functional features to attract more male clients, the waiting area is displayed with comfortable chairs and sofas, and screens that are playing latest news and sports.

The old and new mixture is also reflecting on its service menu. The barbershop offers professional male grooming services including the traditional ones such as hot towel shaves and haircuts, as well as the trendy ones like finest skin care and hair care products.

If you want to add educational functions into your hair and beauty salon, you may need to have enough financial support. The reason is that you need to invest on extra pieces of salon furniture, training equipment and accessories, and enlarge the salon space, convert the salon design into some kind of academy feels, etc.

It is good to get some academy salon design inspirations from some big salon brands:

• ASK Academy in Tokyo has taken a large space and designed it for a range of needs, from salon education to seminars and shows. The salon space is using a futuristic minimalism and an open plan layout. The modern style of salon furniture and facilities with high-tech functions are serving multiple purposes inside the salon.
• The design theme in Aveda Vandam in New York is consistent to the company’s natural and environmental friendly concept. It has put into used recycled fittings and materials on flooring, walls and cabinets, which are made from reclaimed wood. It aims to create a green salon atmosphere with a sleek and couture look.
• With a high-end salon design look, the Joico Artistic Institute in Holland has created a luxurious, elegant but tranquil environment to its students. It has been fully equipped with the pieces of bespoke salon furniture that can cover full range of hairdressing trainings. The imitation of high-end salon design will inspire the learning inspirations of the students since they can feel the real working atmosphere as a hairdresser.

Are you planning to open an academy hair salon for hairdressing training purpose, or design your hair salon with both business and school functions? If so, you need to design the academy surroundings that can boost students’ learning inspirations.

You can get some design inspirations from the following academy salons:

• The interior design L’Oréal’s academy in Rome is a mixture of historical classic and modern technic. It has kept the features of the classical features of the building including historical door frames and ceilings; meanwhile selected the high-tech salon furniture, and training equipment to perfect the academy space.
• The L’Oréal’s academy in Madrid is using a different concept. It has been designed into a “green” training hub. Eco-friendly fittings and recycled materials are featured throughout the salon such as a recycled water display, a recycling wall made by glass, and the flooring made from recycled plastic.
• GFG Hair & Styling – TIGI’s concept salon in Düsseldorf, Germany – can be used as academy salon, as well as presentations, shows and seminars. Its 11-metre catwalk in the salon centre gives clients a supermodel experience.

A hair salon space with creative styles and aesthetics will be appealing to both your clients and hairdressers. It is imperative to maintain a fresh and creative look to promote your salon brand effectively; and to increase your clientele.

Just some small but smart changes – e.g. change the positions of key pieces of salon furniture – can make powerful design effects to your salon space:

Creative uncluttered ideas: adding creative uncluttered ideas to your salon space will become surprising focal points in the eyes of your clients; uncluttered ideas such as in-wall storage, pull-out drawers, push-back colour processing bar, and styling stations with hidden storage are all good options.

Staff room or rest space: dividing some space for your staff to take a break can be a powerful move in your salon; your staff will get the privacy and relaxation during their break, while clients will not be distracted from the view of staff’s food preparing and/or eating.

Cut down assembly lines: avoid making too many assembly lines when displaying your key pieces of salon furniture; for example, you can put the styling stations off the wall with a certain angle to create a different look, which can give privacy to clients and free your wall for some amazing art pieces.

Customer service is one important element that will influence the success and future growth of you salon business. But some small service mistakes may be formed by your hairdressers without any body’s notice. Therefore, it is necessary to put an eye on your daily salon services to find out whether there is any mistake you need to remind to your hairdressers and to adjust them.

Here is a list of some common mistakes the hairdressers may have during serving clients:

Poor attitudes: it is important to give clients a warm and welcoming greeting when they enter the salon and always serve them with a sincere and caring attitude; when hairdressers are getting too busy or tired, they may be easy to ignore the attitudes.

Time management: hairdresser should try the best to manage the service time well so that the clients do not need to wait too long for their appointments; therefore, hairdressers have to deliver high quality of services with high efficiency.

A chatterbox: it is better to become a good listener rather than a chatterbox when the hairdressers are serving their clients, especially when clients want to relax on your comfortable pieces of salon furniture and enjoy the stress-free time.

Personal appearance: as a beauty trend deliverer, the hairdressers should at least give a professional and neat personal appearance to clients; if hairdressers look good, clients will believe that your salon will make them look good.

Since hair salon academy is becoming more and more popular, many salons have increased an educational service to students who get the inspirations to be a hairdresser. Sassoon London in the heart of Mayfair has taken a makeover into its formerly men’s salon as well as academy school. The new expansion and design of the salon aims to offer the best training environment to students.

Design inspirations from Sassoon Academy Salon:

• The design theme is consistent with the company’s design concept – minimalism with simple and clean lines and equipped with contemporary salon furniture and essential facilities;
• The minimalist concept has been enhanced by a bright white colour scheme, an open space planning, and the light-filled walls;
• The classic black is splashing into the bright white backdrop on the pieces of salon furniture, such as styling chairs, TV screen and teaching facilities;
• The different salon floors have been connected by an open-plan staircase based on a central glass-walled atrium, with all the education functions;
• In order to create a high quality and comfortable professional environment to inspire the student’s creation, the salon especially invested on bespoke fixtures and fittings in a state-of-the-art technology.

The Headfirst in Leeds has transferred a spacious former umbrella factory into a modern and contemporary style of hair salon. Inspired by the mock-Tudor frontage of the building, the salon owner aimed to incorporate the traditional with the contemporary to create a special salon ambiance to clients.

Salon design features from Headfirst Leeds:

• The whole building has been designed into a three-floor salon with a Mezzanine level, making full use of the natural light through the large windows and mirrors inside the salon;
• The salon interior selects the pieces of salon furniture and fittings that are in contemporary styles, meanwhile uses the muted and natural colour tones and dark brown textures and upholsters to complement the salon exterior;
• You can be attracted by the two-storey mirrors in reception area, and the fully equipped and comfortably designed coffee bar;
• Private beauty treatment rooms are specially designed into a Zen-style, adding a natural tranquility by fish bowels and Buddhist images on wall, and enhancing a warm welcoming and relaxing feel with a brown colour scheme;
• The salon has enhanced the spacious feel by the long styling bar, ceiling-to-floor pendant lamps, glossy tilt floors and several pieces of large windows and mirrors.

Located in the prestigious centre area of London, Lisa Shepherd London’s salon is expressing a state-of-art design for its clients. When the clients are enjoying the hair styling services, they also feel pampered by the distinctive colourful salon appearance.

Check what design features we can learn from Lisa Shepherd London:

• A single basic colour scheme, combined with splashes of colour and brighten by the natural light, has created a light and bright and colourful salon interior;
• Different salon areas have their own bright splashes of colour, such as red curved reception desk, bright lime green backwash area, yellowish styling chairs, etc.;
• Private client lounge – being fully equipped with the essential facilities, and located far away from the busy salon zones – has offered a quiet, comfortable and entertaining environment for waiting clients;
• The focal features of the salon include pod style of salon furniture, yellow cube entrance, and Smeg fridge;
• The entire salon has paid attention to all the design details, such as light fittings, door handles, display shelves, and fresh plants, etc.

It is said that zebra pattern used in interior design was originally welcomed by people who love traveling and hunting. Nowadays this bright and noticeable pattern has become a popular design trend in many interior décor. If you want to add an eye appealing focal point with a modern but bold design feature into your beauty salon, zebra pattern is one of the smart choices.

Think about how you can mix this pattern artfully into your salon décor:

• The traditional black and white zebra skin pattern can be perfectly united into a black and white salon colour theme;
• You can also use this pattern to enhance a country style salon design if your design theme is French country style, vintage cottage style, or a cool shabby chic;
• This pattern can be used as a decorative element throughout your salon as the accented points, such as the upholstery on some pieces of salon furniture like waiting chairs and styling chairs, bedding sets in beauty rooms, zebra patterned wallpapers, rugs in the waiting area, cushions on the benches, or zebra patterns on the vases and glasses and lampshades, etc.;
• Besides the traditional black and white, you can also choose other colours to cover with zebra patterns, such as brown and white, green and white, to match with your favorite salon colour scheme.

One of the popular and timeless design trends you can select for your hair & beauty salon is a French country style. This style usually creates an elegant luxury, charming and relaxing salon interior for clients.

If this is the feel that you prefer, here are some main design features of French country style for you to follow:

• The design theme is to bring the beautiful French country view into the salon interior, so that your clients can relax into a natural but luxurious ambiance;
• The main colour tones are inspired by the French landscape; white, pink, light purple, green, blue, wood brown, and red spots are the popular choices;
• Patterned wallpaper – usually in organic or floral patterns – are used as one of the main features of this style; the patterns are also inspired from the French landscape such as cherries and greeneries in a white background;
• An antique and/or rustic feel is one of the French country design features, which is emphasized by high ceilings supported by rustic beams, naturally exposed brickwork, and pendant island lights, etc.;
• It is necessary to choose salon furniture of the French country style to match with this design theme – for example, styling stations that are designed as the dressing tables; waiting sofas with soft and floral patterned paddings or cushions in waiting area, etc.