Starting out in the beauty business over three decades ago from Delhi’s Karol Bagh, Looks Salon has recently set foot in Kolkata, opening doors for the first time in this city at Park Street’s Park Mansions. The unisex salon, the brainchild of brand owner Sanjay Dutta, had begun with a three-cutting-station barber shop, later transforming into beauty parlours, and now, unisex salons, with around 162 branches pan-India. Keeping up with the heritage and vintage look and feel of the Park Mansions property, the sprawling salon spread over 2,700sq ft overlooks the busy street below and has a luxury look and feel in its interiors. The USP of this salon chain lies in hairstyling, apart from beauty and nail services.
What: Looks Salon
Where: Park Mansions, 57A Park Street (1st floor)
Timings: 10.30am to 9pm (appointments can be booked by calling one hour prior to the service)
“We always knew that there’s a lot of scope for Looks Salon in this city. We understand the potential that the city has and a salon like Looks will be beneficial for the people of Kolkata. So many people used to go to Delhi for our haircut and hair colour techniques. So that’s how we decided to open an outlet here. Park Street is such an iconic area in the city that we thought there can be no place better to start our journey in this city. There’s a mixed culture here, so we thought this would be the best place to explore and get the clientele we are looking for. Here, we are planning to give all kinds of hair services, haircuts, texture services, pedicure, manicure, extensions in a hygienic, relaxed and comfortable environment. We wanted the design of the salon to complement the building. We wanted to keep the interiors classic with a modern touch,” said Sanjay Dutta, owner.
The salon provides head-to-toe services and is divided into different sections, such as men’s hairstyling, women’s haircut and styling, a Kerastase ritual room, bridal make-up section, a beauty cabin for facials and face treatments, a manicure and pedicure section and a shampoo station for hair wash. Other services include haircut, hair colour, hair spas, pedicure, manicure and hair colouring. It also provides chemical work services, hair reburning, straightening, keratin and advanced techniques of hair colour. Make-up services include bridal and party make-up.
We loved the stairs decorated with mirror and floral decor, leading up to the service section on the first floor.
The entrance lit up with pretty chandeliers display a wide range of products, like L’oreal, Kerastase, Dermalogica for facials and organic beauty brand La’Maze. This is also the reception section of the salon.
A well-lit room with large mirrors is dedicated to the Kerastase ritual services including luxury hair care. The services provided are shampooing, conditioning, Ritual Spa, and are required to follow round the year.
PRO SPEAK
For the opening of the salon, hairstylist and make-up artist Money Bareja, country head, Looks Salon Technical, visited the Kolkata outlet. The Telegraph caught up with her for some hairstyling tips with the festive season right around the corner:
1) In Kolkata, people like their jet black hair and explore everything around that. Based on that they can try techniques like texturing, panelling or streaks.
2) They can opt for the colour technique called Underneath. In this, the black hair remains on the surface and colours like brown and golden brown are applied underneath.
3) Balayage is a great technique to explore, too. We have a special Climazone machine and it generates heat that penetrates the foil to get the colouring right.
Pictures: Pabitra Das