Spa Experience to roll out express beauty and fitness chain Salon Experience
Day spa chain Spa Experience by Better is launching a new salon-only concept in September which will offer express beauty treatments alongside fitness classes.
The first Salon Experience site will launch at Greenwich Leisure Limited’s (GLL) Chelsea Sports Centre site in London – the leisure centre group is the parent company – and will be a “modern, fresh and social environment”.
The space will feature three facial pods, two pedicure and one manicure stations, a retail shop and smoothie bar, all in an open plan layout. There will also be two closed off treatment rooms for massage and waxing. The salon will be connected to a studio, which already exists in the leisure centre, where clients can do traditional and reformer Pilates as well as yoga.
“It’s the first concept we’ve done like this and we really want to hone in on the express treatments. It’s about getting results for clients and getting them quickly because people are time-poor in London,” Melissa Evans, national spa and fitness class manager for Spa Experience, exclusively told Professional Beauty.
“It will be completely different to the traditional spa environment, which has more of that luxe feel and includes thermal areas. It will be edgy and modern, with exposed brickwork and pipe work, and the vibe is that clients will pop in for a quick class followed by an express treatment.”
The concept is the polar opposite to the company’s day spa offering Spa Experience and this has been deliberate. “There’s still a place in London for that more traditional spa environment, and that type of space has worked really well for us, but we want to trial this new concept to see if there’s room in the market for an express-only offering too,” added Evans.
“Plus, in Central London, it’s quite difficult to get a big space and with thermal spa areas you need a large amount of room and a big capital investment to do it right. We’re taking all our learnings from the treatment rooms and training offered at Spa Experience and applying it into the Salon Experience environment.”
If the pilot takes off then there’s potential to roll the concept out to other GLL sites.