Member Article

Former apprentice turned business manager relaunches Northallerton salon

Twenty one year old Teessider Lauren Taylor, a former apprentice who now owns half of the business where she trained, has taken on an apprentice of her own and is undertaking a relaunch.

Lauren co-owns Romanby hair salon, near Northallerton in North Yorkshire, where she completed her training with business partner Claire Shuttleworth.

Operating under a new name, The Hair Lounge has been bolstered by new facilities and will open on August 15. New apprentice Jordan Wilbur has joined the team , whilst plans are in place to add further recruits to the business.

Lauren, a former pupil at Red House School in Norton, has recently become an ambassador for STEM education (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths), after she decided to follow hairdressing as a career, qualifying from Darlington College having initially studied Quantity Surveying.

The salon has become a member of the STEM Exchange, an online service which connects forward-thinking employers and Further Education practitioners to improve the quality of STEM teaching and training.

“STEM education is as important in a hairdressing salon as it is in other industries,” says Lauren. “Science and maths is so important, for example, when creating a new product or mixing colours before applying the solution to a customer.

“We are opening the doors to the salon for tutors and students to see for themselves a business in action – what goes on in the salon and behind-the-scenes in terms of ordering, book-keeping and management – areas you don’t get the chance to study in a college environment.

“It is important that the business continues to develop. I wanted to rename it to give it a fresh look and feel as we have done a lot of work modernising the salon.”

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