Lauren co-owns Romanby hair salon, near Northallerton in North Yorkshire, where she completed her tr

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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