How to Decorate a Beauty Salon

With people from every class and income level increasingly treating themselves to spa treatments, mani-pedis and expensive haircuts, salon owners must set their businesses apart from the competition. Although upscale salons are all the rage, you don't have to spend a fortune to decorate your beauty salon for success. Rather, you must carefully choose furniture and decorative items that maximize client comfort, promote relaxation and can stand up to the test of time.

Instructions

1. Choose a cohesive salon theme or style that reflects the services you offer and complements your clients' taste. If you serve rural clients, you may opt for a homey feel, but if your clientele consists largely of urban professionals, a sleek, modern decor may be more appropriate. Decorate with colors, furniture and accessories consistent with the message you want to convey.

2. Buy salon furniture that's functional and fashionable. In addition to salon chairs and work stations, you need comfortable waiting room furniture and shelves and display cases for retail items. Leather seating and tables and shelves made of glass and metal are ideal for a salon because they're relatively durable and easy to maintain.

3. Buy the right lighting. Salon lighting must be bright enough to illuminate stylists' and other employees' work areas, but must also create a relaxing environment. While fluorescent lights are a popular beauty salon choice, they tend to be unflattering and are especially bright. To calm clients, place decorative wall sconces and floor lamps wherever possible and rely on natural light in work areas, if you can.

4. Invest in high quality, decorative mirrors. When salon clients check out your work, you want a beautiful mirror to reflect their new look. Ditch non-descript, institutional mirrors in favor of metal and wood framed varieties.

5. Deck the walls. While most salons decorate with photographs of models wearing high fashion hairstyles, this may not be the best approach. Save the pictures for the style books and adorn your salon walls with calming art or soothing nature images.

6. Bring the outdoors indoors. Even if a Zen salon theme doesn't suit your clientele, add elements of nature to soothe your customers and employees. Live plants enhance beauty and improve air quality and water features are lovely to look at and create relaxing sounds.

Tips & Warnings

• If you lack the budget for new high quality salon chairs and equipment, consider buying refurbished items. This is a great way to save a lot of money without your clients knowing the difference.