Waterlooville beauty salon owner branches out to Petersfield as she opens new training academy

Lauren-Ann Lee, 26, opened her first beauty salon in Waterlooville in 2018, and it was a success with local customers, which pushed her to take a leap of faith and expand her business by opening her own training academy.

The 26-year-old now has a team of nine at her salon in Mill Road, and one of her staff members, who had completed a course in acrylic nails wanted Lauren’s help. Lauren spent all day with her going over the treatment, and her employee suggested she should look into becoming a teacher – and that is exactly what she did.

During the lockdown, Lauren spent her time getting her qualifications in becoming a teacher and when lockdown was lifted and she began her training in her salon, she found that it took off and she was always at capacity.

She said: ‘One of my girls who works at the salon did her acrylic course and wanted a refresher and asked if I could give her some guidance, so I did and we spent the day going over it, and she said I should become a teacher and since I did her 1-2-1, I wanted to teach nails and beauty.

‘It just got so busy and we were full a month in advance and we ended up doing two courses on the same day and the salon was manic and it wasn’t practical so we needed somewhere bigger.’

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Herself and her employee, Jo Holden, have been running courses, but found themselves having to turn people away or put them on a long waiting list which was not ideal.

After multiple viewings of properties, Lauren found her dream location to start up her latest beauty venture in Petersfield, in the form of a ‘picturesque’ barn conversion.

The site, which is formed of four components for businesses has welcomed Lauren and she officially got the keys on December 28, but there is no holding her back as she has plunged herself into decorating her property.

She will be completing transforming the site with a ‘beautiful’ cloud feature wall and new flooring, as well as a lick of paint to put her own touches on it.

She said: ‘It is so cute and picturesque, it is in the middle of nowhere. We got the keys yesterday which is very exciting so we are decorating at the moment. I like to push my luck, so we will have about a week to do it all up.

‘I am so excited, it is such a big step and I am just really excited for it.’

The academy will have its grand opening on Saturday, and although it is free, it will be ticketed, and there will be opportunities for people to try out some of the courses on offer including nail art.

To book tickets, head to Lauren’s Facebook page.

Lauren added: ‘It is a big step, it is such a change and we can now fit so many more people in. It is just so exciting that we can expand and branch out and we can work with everyone that gets in contact because we have the space.’