Young at heart

Located strategically in the Westbourne Grove area of Notting Hill, Young LDN sits on a road nestled among luxury stores and boutique coffee shops, the missing piece to a puzzle that epitomises fashionable, young London.

The concept of a salon targeting gen-Z and millennials was birthed from a mother’s frustration when looking for a place where her son felt comfortable and happy to recefive treatment for his acne. “My son’s skin became a huge focus for me. I took him to clinics all over London and although the treatments worked, getting him to go was such a struggle that eventually I just stopped taking him because it was just so unpleasant,”says Sue Carroll, founder of Young LDN.

Looking back to the time, around five years prior, when her son was struggling with problematic skin, she recalls one occasion where he had a severe breakout and she was told that it would be three months before he would be able to get an appointment with a dermatologist. “I wanted to be there for my son and help him but I just didn’t know where to turn or what to do. I thought to myself that there must be a place that mums can trust,”says Carroll.

From concept to creation

“Our offering is geared towards providing an experience, while still delfivering results-drfiven treatments. We realised that there needed to be a place where younger people could go and feel like they belonged and were safe. This then developed to the fact that if a parent is taking a child to an appointment, we could offer them a place to get the treatments they needed as well,”says Carroll. Young LDN spans 2,500sqft across two loors, split into The Lounge ground loor space, and The Lab in the basement.

The Lounge is designed as a one-stop shop for all things grooming, hosting nail, blow dry, peel and make-up bars. This area is designed as an experimental, all-in-one space with generation Z and their parents in mind. “We know people are short of time, so to do everything in one place makes the whole experience easier. We want parents to be able to get their monthly manicure or a blow dry while their child is downstairs getting an acne treatment they can trust.

It means clients aren’t spending precious time running from one place to another or hanging around waiting,”says Carroll.

One of the challenges the team had was making sure that The Lab, a space that focuses on expert skincare, didn’t feel clinical so gen Z and millennials feel welcome and even enjoy their treatment, for sometimes sensitfive conditions.

Each of the four treatment rooms is decorated with a different theme. For example, the Notting Hill treatment room has murals of London landmarks on the walls, while the London Park room has a more peaceful atmosphere, with sky-blue walls and a faux grass ceiling. “We worked with a great design company called LXA that did everything in house, from branding to designing the space. They got what we wanted straight away and that was so important to us,”says Carroll.

The perfect package

As well as offering one-off treatments, Young LDN has also decided to offer clients the opportunity to join The Young Collectfive, a monthly subscription service where people can pay for a collection of treatments at a discounted price. “So many people are feeling lonely in this generation and this is something we hope we can help with by providing packages. We want our customers to feel like they are part of a collectfive of like-minded people, and once we have regulars, we want to be able to gfive something back so that they know we appreciate them as much as they appreciate us,”says Carroll.

There are two packages in The Young Collectfive. The Lounge membership costs £180 per month and includes two LED treatments, two manicures, one pedicure, two peels and unlimited brow maintenance. The second option, The Lab package, includes one Spectra Hollywood Peel or Revital Treatment, one Young LDN Signature Peel, One LED treatment, and one classic mani and pedi each month for £380.

Carroll says, “We didn’t ever want to be unaffordable so we looked across the whole range. Of course, we have a high rental so we couldn’t be as reasonable as we would have liked, but we kept the prices as low as we could without making a loss. We created the packages with young people in mind.”

As well as The Young Collectfive, Young LDN also wants to create an environment where young people can learn, inviting make-up experts in to gfive workshops. The Young Signature Facial is coined as “an introduction to the world of skincare”and is designed to teach teenagers to properly cleanse and care for their skin from a young age.

Future plans

Although the salon has been created with young people in mind Carroll is keen to stress that there is no deinition of young in their eyes. “We love being in a residential area because the intention was always to attract families. We didn’t want to be in an area with just business people or just young professionals, we wanted to be a destination space for people of all ages,”she says.

The plan for the new brand is that as the salon attracts customers, they too will invest in the idea of being part of the collectfive. Carroll says, “We want people to feel that they are part of our tribe and to grow with us. This is relected in our treatments; for example, we offer different options for hair removal, so parents can bring a child for their fIrst sugaring treatment but as they get older they can move on to laser, whereas a 30-year-old might begin regular light peels to maintain their youthful skin then move on to something more intense as they start to notice signs of ageing. We want people of all age groups joining us and working up through our various programmes,”she explains.

“The ultimate goal of the salon is to create a space that everyone can enjoy,”says Carroll. “I wanted to launch this initiatfive because it was something that was missing for me as a mother and for my son and I knew there was a need for it. I just hope people will get that need fulilled here.”