Creating buzz today are new, spa-like treatments for hair and scalps.
In the world of high-end hairdressing, a wash, style and blowdry just don’t cut it anymore. Prestige salons around Europe are adding treatments to their menus, such as ayurvedic head massages, meant not only to leave hair glossy and healthy but also give clients an added experience.
“We want to offer everything we possibly can,” said Gail Bolger, senior therapist of London’s seco nd Taylor Taylor salon, which opened its doors this summer in the city’s trendy Spitalfi elds neighborhood.
The salon, owned by stylist Bradley Taylor, began offering ayurvedic head, neck and shoulder massages using warm Shirodhara oil in August.
“Clients love to have that little something extra,” added Bolger, who noted the treatment, which takes about an hour, is priced from £30 (?44/$56) to £60.
For salon owners, such treatments can also be remedial for their often-fatigued clientele.
“This is for urbanites, for people with stressful lifestyles, who need to the time to stop and relax,” explained Claire Groult, managing director of Carita’s Maison de Beauté in Paris. “It’s for highly charged women who live at 300 kilometers per hour and expect results.”
The Carita salon and training space has since January been offering a Hair Regenerating Massage, which uses shiatsu techniques billed to release tension, re-oxygenate the scalp and improve cellular exchanges to fi ght free radicals that prevent cell renewal. Priced at ?75 (£51/$96), the massage takes about 60 minutes.
Some salons are going the signature treatment route, offering people made-to-measure experiences to help establish loyalty.
London’s Charles Worthington salon, for example, added a “mixology menu” to its treatment list in January. This involves stylists blending bespoke mixtures for clients based on their hair-care needs after a short consultation. There’s typically a base used, say for dry hair, to which shots of other treatments are added. Once this is done, customers can choose to have the combination sealed with hot irons (£23 per 30 minutes) or with hot towels (£16 per 15 minutes).
“Clients love it,” said Louise Crabtree, marketing manager of the salon, adding that customers tend to use the service regularly, particularly before and after vacations. “It’s something they can’t do for themselves, because you have to have the expertise of the stylist.”
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Alain Divert has also been offering custom-blended treatments since opening his eponymous salon in Paris this April. Stylists there mix ingredients, such as ginger, banana and seeds from nasturtium fl owers. The concoctions are then lathered into clients’ heads and left under steam for 20 minutes before their hair and scalp are massaged. The 45-minute session costs ?45.
Executives say such heady mixes and massages don’t necessarily boost salon sales, but certainly add buzz.
“Clients are interested,” said Flavio Ferrari, owner of Milan’s Salone Carducci, which began offering a fi ve-step Aveda Damage Remedy Hair Spa Treatment, in July. “They see another client is getting a massage and they want to know more about it.” The treatment, which includes a 15-minute head, neck and shoulder rub, an oil treatment and a hand massage, has prices starting at ?25.
Salon executives are testing out hair treatments in numerous ways. But they all agree that novel, hands-on approaches can be anything but a washout.
This article appeared in WWD Beauty Report International a special publication of WWD.
— With contributions from Ellen Groves and Stephanie Epiro