Fareham businesswoman hosts awards to celebrate the best in the beauty industry

Kerrie Humphrys, who set up Locate Your Look, will host the second annual Best Love Salon Awards at the Macdonald Botley Park Hotel.

The awards ceremony will take place on Saturday, January 18.

The winners of the awards are chosen on how many positive reviews each salon received over the course of the year.

Founded in 2018, Locate Your Look is a website on which customers can both review and scrutinise salon companies, in order to ensure they are adequate and have sufficient training.

It was inspired by tradesperson review site Checkatrade.

CEO Kerrie, from Fareham, said: ‘I am very excited to be hosting these awards. Last year’s were held in January as well, but this year’s will be on a grander scale.

‘We are like a check-a-trade for the salon business. We know that people have to start somewhere, but you have to do the proper training.’

With Locate your Look, salon workers publish how much experience they have so that customers are able to scrutinise and select the perfect candidate.

Kerrie has worked in the industry for nearly 34 years, and is the owner of two salons.

The 48-year-old said: ‘The industry has changed a lot – 56 per cent of professionals are now working for themselves.

‘Everybody in the industry is in the same bubble. The money is in being your own boss; so the big chains are missing out.’

Monthly awards are also handed to salons depending on how many five-star reviews they get. If a company continues to receive bad reviews, it risks removal from the website.

Kerrie said: ‘If a salon gets a bad review, we will call them up and try to help them.

‘A lot of this industry is not regulated, so more and more people are getting on the bandwagon and the true professionals are losing out because these people are charging lower prices.

‘We give customers the assurance that anyone found on our site will deliver the services they advertise.’

Kerrie spoke of how no such transparency website existed when she was working in salons, and how it was a much needed invention.

She said: ‘I feel that the way the world is now, we need to be able to research every industry.’