Tesco is expanding by launching a new Beauty Salon business.
UK supermarket chain Tesco has launched a new health and beauty service comprising hairdressing, nail and threading bars. Nail and threading treatments are currently being trialed at stores in Wembley, Cambridge Bar Hill, Milton Keynes, Kingston and Manchester, while standalone beauty salons, which will also offer hairdressing services, will be opened in Leicester and Chesterfield.

The Two shop-in-shops that open this Monday 31st January are the supermarket giants first attempts to capitalize on what it sees as being a "huge opportunity". The beauty market in the UK is estimated to be worth in the region of £5bn a year.

The salons have been designed to look like separately-branded concessions within the Tesco stores,
Andrew Carpenter, Tesco Beauty Category Manager, said: "We know beauty treatments are very popular with many people these days, and we feel the convenience of great value and quality services, from manicures to full waxing and styling, could be a success with customers,"

Tesco has revealed plans to open 70 in-store beauty salons by the end of 2011.
The services available through the beauty salons will include hair styling and colouring, waxing, manicures and threading and customers will be able to purchase products from brands including Professional brands L’oreal owned Redken and Unilevers TIGI Bedhead.

Is this perhaps a step too far? Some believe Tesco is - again - stretching its brand too far. Is the grocer getting the psychology of women's beauty services all wrong? Tesco is hardly where time-poor women would like to have their nails buffed?
But in tough times, is there a place for credit crunch beauty? Remember the launch and ongoing success of the Barbara Daly make up range, Tesco's latest move into a broader range of professional beauty services is still about the ‘c' word, but convenience, as much as cost.

The professional Hair & Beauty market is poised with baited breath…