A HEREFORDSHIRE hair salon has been nominated for three awards in two separate competitions.

Serenity Professional Hairdressing was shortlisted for Best Salon at the 2023 UK Hair and Beauty Awards.

And it has been nominated for two awards at the English Hair & Beauty Awards - Best Salon and Best Salon Team.

Donna Oliver, who runs the High Street salon, said she is immensely proud of her team.

“It’s always amazing to be nominated for awards but it’s particularly pleasing to be nominated for Best Salon Team,” she said.

“Clients often comment on how welcoming we are and that we’re like one big family.

“My girls here are my work family. My children call them aunties and we’re all such a tight-knit group. I’m so proud of all of them.

“I’ve been here nine years and in that time two of the girls have gone from being apprentices and worked their way up.”

Donna said she has an idea which client nominated the salon for the UK Hair and Beauty Awards (HBAs) and is grateful that someone had taken the time to do it.

That nomination was followed by a pretty thorough vetting process that involved a mystery shopper, analysis of the salon’s website and social media, and questionnaires for the team to fill out.

The process of entering the English Hair & Beauty Awards started automatically because Serenity had nominated in previous years, but also saw mystery shoppers attend the salon.

The team attended the HBAs in November and will be attending more award ceremonies in March and April.

Donna said awards do help attract new clients to the salon, even in times of economic uncertainty.

“We had a really good December, but you do wonder what’s around the corner,” she said. “A lot of businesses will be worried about the cost of living crisis because I think it’s only just started to impact some industries.

“There may be more difficult times ahead but you can’t predict it, you have to take the good with the bad.

“We have a good client following and Ledbury is expanding with all the new houses, so hopefully people will see us winning awards and say ‘we’ll try that salon’.”