Bespoke Meditation at The Hairbank

Lizzie Falconer, Founder of Beautiful Thinking has teamed up with Laura Kulik of The Hairbank to offer salon clients a range of bespoke meditations within The Hairbank’s new meditation room.

The meditations are perfect for clients to experience while colours or treatments are processing. Along with The Hairbank’s new meditation room, Laura has also added some other mental health initiatives in the salon to help combat the stressful effects from the coronavirus pandemic.

Below, Laura spoke to us about the new meditations and key changes she has made to the salon during the Covid-19 lockdown…

We wanted to take the time that lockdown provided to make a positive change. We think our client journey is already unique, carefully designed around emotions created through the senses of touch, sight, smell, and sound. We work on the fundamental belief that our client’s journey is not just about the completed product and how your hair looks, it is about how we made you feel. From something as simple as a greeting, we have evaluated each individual element in our salon, to make sure you feel calm, balanced, and uplifted.

With this ambition in mind, one significant addition we have made is our private mediation room. With research showing a clear deterioration of mental health during the pandemic, we wanted to create a dedicated space for relaxation and self-care. Quickly realising the extent to which lockdown was increasing social anxiety and stress, we wanted to do something meaningful about it.

We are the first salon in the UK to offer this specialist service free of charge as an inclusive part of the in-salon experience. In our determination to develop a truly zen environment, we paid great attention to the details: from the plants designed for their known calming properties and air-purification benefits, to our salt lamps and mood lighting, we were genuinely committed to creating the ultimate relaxation experience.

As part of this, we commissioned something unique and a first: a bespoke Hairbank guided meditation, created for us by the team at Beautiful Thinking. Taking a brief from us around our relaxation room idea and the ethos of the Hairbank, Lizzie Falconer and her team produced a wonderful 20-minute guided meditation recording, to which all our clients are free to listen as part of their time in our relaxation room and when waiting for their colour treatments to take effect. The innovation has been extremely well-received and is certainly helping our clients deal with the many challenges of pandemic times.

We have also introduced natural aroma therapy products by Anna Vero. Alongside our signature salon fragrance, which Anna also makes especially for us. We stock the Anna Vero products for purchase, with free testers available within the private room. Once inside the salon you will be met with our bespoke created essential oil aroma, which consists of:

• Bergamot: Used for reducing anxiety and depression and immediately calms the nervous system.
• Mandarin: Great for relaxing children, as they very much like the smell, and good for nervous tension.
• Geranium: Healing oil that helps to balance mood and hormonal imbalance.
• Patcholi: Reduces anxiety and depression.

Due to new restrictions and the use of PPE, we have also worked together with our reception team to find a new way of maintaining our friendly greetings. As our smiles are hidden, we have introduced the use of sign language. You can expect to be welcomed by us touching our hearts and the hand gesture for thank you, when leaving us.