There’s something particularly special about a small business that grows organically.
No grand five-year plan. No huge investment from day one. Just a decision to give something a go, a lot of hard work, and a genuine passion for what you do.
That’s certainly the story of Louise, owner of The Beauty Loft.
What started around 14 years ago as a plan to work just two days a week from a small treatment room at home has grown into a thriving hair and beauty business, with a loyal team, clients who have been with Louise since the very beginning, and a beautiful new home at the Old Bishop’s Palace in Little Downham.
We caught up with Louise for the latest episode of Made In Ely to talk about her journey, building a team, staying true to what you do best and taking the leap into something bigger.
An unexpected start in beauty
Louise’s route into the beauty industry wasn’t exactly mapped out from the beginning.
After leaving school, she worked as a legal secretary at Archer and Archer, which is now Ward Gethin. She then had her children and, after some time away from work, started thinking about what she wanted to do next.
“I love being a mum, but I’m not a stay-at-home mum. I need to be busy.”
The answer was beauty.
It wasn’t something she had spent years planning to pursue. Instead, Louise looked for something she could train in and potentially do from home while her children were young.
She enrolled at college in the evenings and completed her NVQ Level 2 and Level 3 qualifications – all while juggling family life.
Her original plan was simple: work two days a week during school hours.
But, as Louise admits, she has never really been someone who does things by halves.
She set up a small treatment room at home, dropped leaflets around the village and waited to see what happened.
It happened rather quickly.
Two days became four. Four days became evenings. Then came weekends.
Before long, the business was taking over the house.
Making clients feel more than just a number
The growth of The Beauty Loft wasn’t simply down to offering beauty treatments.
For Louise, the experience has always been just as important as the treatment itself.
She remembers what it was like to be a busy mum with very little time to herself, and wanted to create somewhere where her own clients could switch off from everyday life.
The idea was simple: come in, relax, and forget about everything happening outside the treatment room for a little while.
That meant taking the extra time to get to know people, remembering the little things they had told her and making them feel genuinely welcome.
It’s an approach that has stayed with her throughout the business.
Some clients who originally visited Louise in her spare room at home are still clients today – around 14 years later.
And perhaps that says more about the business than any number on a spreadsheet ever could.
As Louise puts it, clients shouldn’t feel like “just a number in your diary.”
They should feel listened to, remembered and valued.
Knowing when it was time to move
Eventually, the business outgrew the family home.
Louise and her husband were actually designing their new house around her beauty room, but as the children got older, it became increasingly difficult to separate family life from work.
Friends coming round after school, family life and clients all had to coexist under one roof.
Louise also recognised that she needed boundaries.
Having a business at home made it far too easy to squeeze in one more client, work later than planned, or simply carry on working because everything was right there.
Moving into a dedicated salon space gave The Beauty Loft something just as important as more room: a clear beginning and end to the working day.
The move into Ely brought its own challenges, particularly around childcare, but Louise’s clients followed her.
And the business continued to grow.
Staying in your own lane
One of the most interesting parts of Louise’s story is that, despite working in an industry where trends are constantly changing, she has deliberately avoided chasing them.
The Beauty Loft has always concentrated on traditional beauty treatments and doing them exceptionally well.
“I stay in my own lane.”
It’s a philosophy that feels increasingly relevant in a world where businesses are constantly exposed to what everyone else is doing on social media.
There’s always another trend to follow, another service to offer or another competitor to compare yourself against.
But Louise believes there’s real value in knowing what you are good at – and sticking to it.
Do what you love. Do what you do well. Don’t feel pressured to become something you’re not.
It seems to have worked.
The business has continued to grow, and many of the clients who came through the door years ago are still there today.
Taking the biggest leap yet
Before COVID, The Beauty Loft had reached capacity.
The salon was fully booked months in advance, but there were only two small treatment rooms, two nail desks and a tiny reception area.
There simply wasn’t much more room to grow.
Louise had started looking at other properties, but nothing felt quite right.
Then came COVID.
Afterwards, business picked up again – and The Beauty Loft returned to being fully booked.
Everyone knew they needed more space, but taking that next step was still a huge decision.
Then two things happened.
Firstly, Louise’s rent was increased.
Secondly, her mum suffered a brain aneurysm.
The experience made Louise reflect on what really mattered.
Life, she realised, is too short to spend forever wondering “what if?”
She had looked at properties before, but none had felt right.
Then the Old Bishop’s Palace in Little Downham came onto the market.
Louise was originally due to view it, but her mum’s aneurysm happened over the bank holiday weekend and the viewing never happened. Someone else subsequently took the property.
But Louise left the door open with the landlord.
When the deal eventually fell through, she got the call.
She went to view it with her husband and, almost immediately, knew.
“It just felt right. It felt like The Beauty Loft – just on a much bigger scale.”
Sometimes, you really do just know.
From an empty barn to The Beauty Loft
Of course, knowing it was right was only the beginning.
When Louise and her husband got the keys, the new premises were essentially a huge open barn.
The transformation that followed was enormous.
Thankfully, Louise’s husband is a builder.
Between November and the end of December, he worked incredibly hard to turn the space into the salon Louise had envisioned.
The timing was far from ideal.
November and December are among the busiest times of the year for a beauty business, and Louise was simultaneously running the old salon, dealing with the Christmas rush and overseeing the renovation of the new one.
But there was a deadline.
Louise didn’t want to start another year in the old salon.
She wanted to start the new year in the new one.
And on 3 January, they did exactly that.
Looking back, Louise says the renovation gave her something else during an incredibly difficult period in her life.
Her mum’s illness and the transformation of the new salon happened alongside one another – and the project gave her something to focus on.
Sometimes the timing of things is strange.
But sometimes it turns out to be exactly right.
Creating a feeling, not just a salon
Walk into the new Beauty Loft and one thing is immediately obvious: this isn’t a space that has been designed by accident.
Pink and gold feature heavily throughout the salon – something that comes as little surprise when you discover that pink is Louise’s favourite colour.
In fact, Louise deliberately wanted to move away from the standard salon aesthetic.
During her research, she visited several hair salons for blow-dries and noticed something.
Everything was black.
She wanted something completely different.
Something girly.
Something calming.
Something relaxing.
Something that stood out.
And that attention to detail carries throughout the salon.
It isn’t simply about having somewhere to have your hair or nails done. Louise wants the entire experience to feel special.
From the moment clients drive onto the site, the aim is to remove the stresses that can come with a traditional town-centre appointment.
There’s plenty of parking, the salon is surrounded by greenery, and the whole journey is designed to feel more like arriving somewhere to relax.
One client even described it as feeling like they were driving to a spa.
That’s exactly the feeling Louise was looking for.
More than hair and beauty
Perhaps the thing that really sets The Beauty Loft apart, though, is its people.
Louise has built a team that genuinely enjoys working together.
Her manager has been with her for seven years, and many members of the team have been there for a long time.
The salon has an open, friendly atmosphere where hair, nails, pedicures and beauty treatments all feel part of the same experience.
Clients who don’t know each other have even started booking their nail appointments at the same time so they can catch up.
It’s a small example, but it perfectly sums up what Louise has created.
It doesn’t feel clinical or intimidating.
It feels social.
It feels friendly.
It feels like somewhere you can come in, have a chat and spend some time with people.
And if you don’t want to talk?
That’s fine too.
The appointment is yours.
Building the right team
For any growing business, recruitment can be one of the biggest challenges.
For Louise, the lesson has been simple: don’t recruit because you’re desperate.
She would rather work longer hours herself than bring the wrong person into the business.
Why?
Because skills can be taught.
Personality and team fit are much harder to change.
Louise now puts far more emphasis on whether someone will fit into the culture of The Beauty Loft than simply whether they can perform the technical side of the job.
Her recruitment process has evolved too.
Following an initial interview, potential team members are invited back for a trade test. Louise stays nearby while her manager and other members of the team interact with the candidate.
Sometimes there is even a second trade test.
It gives everyone the opportunity to see how that person actually fits into the environment.
And Louise has developed a brilliant way of looking at it.
When interviewing someone, she thinks about how one of her long-standing clients would feel about that person carrying out their treatment.
Would they feel comfortable?
Would they get along?
Would they feel looked after?
If the answer is yes, they could be the right fit.
Being present matters
After around a decade of running the business, Louise believes one of the biggest reasons for The Beauty Loft’s longevity is simply being present.
She still spends three or four days a week working on the salon floor, as well as being there throughout the week to make sure her team are okay.
For Louise, being a business owner doesn’t mean stepping away from the day-to-day operation.
Quite the opposite.
She believes that if you step too far away from your business, you can lose touch with what your clients actually want and what is happening within the team.
Her staff also see how much she cares about The Beauty Loft – and that passion becomes contagious.
They care about the brand because they know how much it means to Louise.
Building a team outside the salon
That team spirit doesn’t stop when the working day ends.
The Beauty Loft team regularly spends time together outside work too.
For their 10-year anniversary, Louise took members of her team away, and more recently they went horse riding together.
Louise admits that horse riding was a little outside her comfort zone – especially given how big the horses are!
But that’s part of the point.
The team enjoys doing different things together rather than simply going out drinking.
There have also been charity events, partners joining in and plenty of opportunities for everyone to get to know each other outside the salon.
For Louise, building a strong team means building relationships.
Her younger team members even call her “Mum”.
And that closeness means they know they can come to her with personal or professional problems.
It’s a culture that doesn’t happen simply because people work in the same building.
It has to be built.
An industry that’s changing
Over Louise’s 14 years in the industry, beauty has changed enormously.
Aesthetics and injectables have become increasingly prominent, while the standard and accessibility of training has also changed.
Louise is particularly concerned about the rise of extremely short online courses that can provide qualifications for treatments without the same level of practical training she experienced through college.
That’s one reason The Beauty Loft is very strict about its own standards.
The salon doesn’t remove other salons’ work, and there are treatments and age restrictions they stick to based on their training and insurance.
For Louise, it comes back to something fundamental:
quality matters.
And that also applies when it comes to pricing.
The Beauty Loft isn’t trying to be the cheapest option.
Louise understands that there will always be people who can offer a treatment for less, particularly if they work from home with fewer overheads.
But the price of a treatment reflects far more than the treatment itself.
It reflects training, experience, products, insurance, time, premises and – importantly – the overall experience.
After years in business, Louise no longer feels the need to apologise for that.
She knows what The Beauty Loft offers.
And she knows its value.
What’s next?
For now, Louise isn’t looking to make another huge leap.
After the upheaval of the last year, she simply wants to breathe, settle into the new salon and continue growing.
The beauty side of the business is thriving, while the hair offering is still relatively new and has plenty of room to develop.
There are also a couple of things quietly being worked on behind the scenes with her manager, Emily – although Louise isn’t quite ready to reveal what they are yet!
The Beauty Loft is also supporting Ely Food Bank, with a donation basket at the salon and a raffle taking place, as well as plans for a shopping event closer to Christmas.
For now, though, it’s about building on what has already been created.
Staying true to what makes you different
Perhaps the biggest lesson from Louise’s story is that you don’t necessarily need to chase every trend to build a successful business.
You need to understand what you are good at.
You need to understand your customers.
You need to create an experience that people value.
And, perhaps most importantly, you need to trust your gut.
From a tiny treatment room at home to a beautiful new salon in Little Downham, The Beauty Loft has grown because Louise has consistently stayed true to the things that matter to her: quality, people, experience and doing things her own way.
And after more than a decade in business, that approach seems to be working pretty well.
Meet The Beauty Loft
The Beauty Loft is now based at the Old Bishop’s Palace on Tower Road, Little Downham, around eight minutes from Ely.
You can find The Beauty Loft Ely online via its website and social media channels, including Instagram, Facebook and TikTok.
And if Louise’s story has taught us anything, it’s that sometimes the best business decisions start with a very simple feeling:
“This just feels right.”
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