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

Staceyq8@gmail.com

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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LESLIE’S PICK

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,

llyon@spas2b.com, or by visiting the website at

www.spas2b.com.

32 SPA CANADA MAGAZINE

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

LESLIE’S PICK

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