images salon & day spas · o& $ 0 $ : salmiya branch: 1995 sabah ... [email protected] ......
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Name of Spa: Images Salon & Day Spa, Kuwait
Opened since: Salmiya Branch: 1995 Sabah
Al-Salem Branch 2005
Hours of Operation: Saturday - Thursday 9am - 8pm;
Fridays 10 - 6pm (Weekends are Friday & Saturday)
Type of Spa: Day Spa
Size of Spa: 125 square meters for Spa, 125 square
meters for Hair salon, staff rooms & Back of house.
Number of Employees: Salmiya Branch: 9; Sabah
Al-Salem Branch: 8
Number of Treatment Rooms: Salmiya: 4; Sabah
Al-Salem: 2
Types of Treatments offered: Hair Care, Hands &
Feet including nail art; Facials; Massage Therapy;
Makeup in European and Arabic styles; Body Care
including Arabic Sheera (sugaring); Body & Soul
Treatments including themed treatments and Hot
Stone.
Business Stats:Spa Management Education: Spas2b Inc.
Software Program used: Unique salon and spa
software
Staff Compensation Method: Salary & Salary +
commission
Product Lines used: Hair: Matrix, Wella, L’Oreal,
Kadus
Nails: OPI, Essie, Zoya, Creative Acrylic & Gel
products
Nail Spa: Qtica, Cuccio & Bella Lucce
Hair Removal: Depileve
Facial products: Skyndor, Estee Lauder,
Obaji, CelexC
Body Wraps & Massage: Bella Lucce
Make-Up: Estee Lauder
Top 3 selling services:
Qtica themed manicures & pedicures,
High & Low Lights, Body Wraps,
Body Waxing
Contact Information:
Dr. Stacey Al-Ghawas
P.O. Box 123 Al-Qosoor
Kuwait 47402
Your valued advice to those opening/operating a spa:
Understand that this is a detail-oriented business that
requires a customer-centric focus. Hire professionals
that are passionate about their work and who strive for
perfection. Support your staff and build a cohesive,
fun working environment – customers will feel the
positive energy and their loyalty and appreciation will
drive your business forward. I also recommend that
you hire an accountant and follow your business and
finances in an analytical manner.
Images Salon & Day Spas
Images Salon & Day Spa was opened in 1995 and was
the first American style salon in Kuwait. At the time it
opened, it was unique in that it offered a customer-
centric focus and full professional services for hair,
nails, body & face in a clean and convenient location.
I did not open Images because I was a trained hair-
dresser or esthetician - I opened my business because I
was a serious customer searching for professional
beauty care.
I had been visiting a multitude of salons in Kuwait
looking for a place where I could be assured of polite
and professional hair care. In those days, you had to
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Spas2b is now in 32 countries worldwide
Leslie Lyon began her career in the Health andBeauty Industry over 25
years ago and today enjoysher profession as an
International Consultant,Educator, Key Note Speaker,
Published Columnist andFreelance Writer. Leslie is
the President of Spas2b Inc.,which is a full-service Spa
Development, Consulting andTraining Company based inWaterloo, Ontario, Canada.Her company’s international
Consulting Assignments range from the smallest
Boutique Spas to the 25,000square foot super spas, and
everything in between – fromSpa Start Ups to Spa
Turnarounds.
You can find out more about Spas2b by contacting
Leslie Lyon directly at 1-519-585-0626,
[email protected], or by visiting the website at
www.spas2b.com.
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LESLIE’S PICK
wait until you were sufficiently desperate to
gather the courage to battle through a salon
experience. There was no such thing as a hair
appointment – you merely showed up and vied
for the hairdresser’s attention. Once fortunate
enough to be seated, you then had to struggle
through in broken Arabic to describe what kind
of style you wanted. In the middle of your ses-
sion, it was common practice for the hair-
dressers’ friends and other customers to
interrupt her for hair consultations and you
would find yourself stranded in your chair as she
began someone else’s hair! As a customer, you
never felt like you were the focal point of the
operators who all chatted with each other in their
native languages and completely ignored you.
Because most Arab women prefer to have long hair, the
skill level for haircutting was undeveloped and
emphasis was on blow dry styling, which is where they
excel. You may have left the salon looking good, but
once you washed your hair you realized that your cut
was uneven and lopsided! Once I started needing to
color my hair, the real disasters began: burned scalp,
fried hair & brassy blonds!
Many salons offered basic manicure and pedicure
services and massage; body scrubs and hair removal
are a staple business because Arab women strive for
full body depilation and soft skin; but in general, spa
services like facials and body wraps could only be
found at the salons located in large hotels, meaning
you had to go to several places to get all of your needs
met.
15 years ago, a trip to the salon was a nerve racking
and unpredictable experience.
As a business development executive, I was always
thrilled and challenged by creating businesses for large
companies and I wanted to be able to apply my
knowledge to a smaller scale business that I could
afford and have the satisfaction of being the owner of.
My frustration with visiting salons planted a seed in
my mind: so, why not just open your own
salon & spa?
Of course, in opening any business that is
new, we all have to rely on previous
experiences and extrapolate other skills and
techniques to ensure that our business doesn’t
fail. I drew upon my previous business experi-
ences of managing medical and technical
equipment procurement; real estate and restaurant
development (to aid in site selection); design;
construction; recruitment; advertising; and, most
importantly; navigating through the Kuwaiti licensing
rules and regulations.
There are several things that make owning a Salon &
Spa in Kuwait, different than in other countries. The
first are the restrictions placed on site locations. Due to
the licensing restrictions of the Municipality in
Kuwait, most salons have to be fit out in existing
apartment buildings and most apartments lack the
required number of rooms and bathrooms to make such
a conversion easy. In addition, you have to complete
your fit-out before you get the license – this means that
if your site is not zoned for a salon, you will have done
a lot of construction and spent a lot of money and end
up without a license! This is not uncommon.
Because the salon & spa industry in Kuwait is
unregulated, there are many unqualified people in the
profession and this has lead to many government
restrictions. The Ministry of Labor gives you a quota
for employees that is always too low to cover the dif-
ferent shifts and hours of operation. In Kuwait, there
is no such thing as part time work and all employees
are under the legal sponsorship of the business owner
– you cannot “rent a booth”. It is time consuming and
tedious to get employees transferred to your
sponsorship. For example, if they don’t perform or are
incompetent, you cannot fire them for 12 months!
There are many salons in Kuwait and, as in most
places, good operators are in high demand. If you want
to bring in beauty professionals from overseas, they
must have a college degree and be over 30 years old in
order to be acceptable for a working visa. Professional
massage, esthetician, and hairdressing school
certificates are not recognized!
Images staff form a mini-U.N., with women cur-
rently from Lebanon, Philippines, Iran, India and
Romania and in the past we had ladies from
Iceland, the U.S. and Canada who were in Kuwait
because of their husbands’ jobs.
Our clientele is balanced between the West and the
East and consequently we offer a wide variety of
services to suit every hair type, every grooming
protocol, and every occasion!
Kuwait is a fantastic place to be a woman because it is
a very socially active place and femininity is promoted
through fashion, jewelry, perfume, and culture.
In the past, most Arab women didn’t explore
highlighted hair so color was restricted to Westerners
with lighter colored hair. This has radically changed
and today Arab women are now enjoying the wide
range of hair colors. Of course, many Arab women are
fair skinned and have light hair to begin with, so they
appreciate a well done weave to add dimension to their
hair. Although in public many Muslim women cover
their hair, when they remove their scarves in the
privacy of their friends and relatives, they are among
the most fashionable and glamorous women in the
world. When they attend parties and weddings, you
will see fashion and beauty that rivals the Academy
Awards – to many outside of this region this may come
as a surprise, but the truth is, living in the Gulf States
of the Middle East, compels you to step up your own
personal grooming regime in order to compete with
these women!
In addition to beauty and fashion, another component
of Arab lifestyle is hospitality. People here are very
friendly and the culture is traditionally very centered
on providing visitors with hospitality and comfort. We
incorporated these cultural values into our operations.
Our staff is friendly and customer- centric and we try
to ensure that customers are pampered. We respect
customers’ schedules and offer services from a
multiple of operators simultaneously – the customer is
like a Queen Bee with staff hovering over her doing a
manicure, pedicure and hair treatment all at the same
time! In addition, we offer private treatment rooms,
provide robes to protect clothing, offer complimentary
beverages and current reading material in English and
Arabic.
The population of Kuwait is relatively young with over
50% of the Kuwaitis under the age of 18. In order to
stay current with this trend, we have recently launched
our website ImagesQ8.com which contains a complete
list of our services, photos of our staff and descriptions
of our treatments. We will shortly begin a self-
registration program for customers that will send them
a birthday card with a coupon for a free Birthday
Service that they can redeem within a month of their
birthday. Most of our business comes through word of
mouth and we treat our loyal customers generously.
As part of the Kuwaiti community, Images sponsors
several charity events and offers special treatment
packages for schools and organizations.
Our goals for the future are to continue serving our
customers in the best possible manner at our two
existing locations, and to better serve our market
by opening additional branches in other areas of
Kuwait. g
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