Posts Tagged ‘spa awards’

Professional Beauty Awards 2010 – Winners

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

istock_000006483948smallJust hours after LA had its Oscar ceremony, spa and salon experts dressed up in their finest and headed to their very own red carpet event at the Hilton Hotel in London. The Professional Beauty Awards marked the end of this year’s Professional Beauty Show, the UK’s main event for the beauty, nails and spa industries.

The Awards proved to be a fantastic night, bringing together over 550 beauty professionals to honour those who have performed outstandingly over the last year; Co-creator of Smack the Pony, actress and comedienne Sally Phillips hosted the ceremony and guests enjoyed healthy treats and the post-awards disco until the early hours.

With the recession in mind, there was a widespread fear amongst insiders that service and supplies quality standards would be dropping in the industry in 2009; luckily, this hasn’t happened, and this year’s Award winners are the most inspiring yet!

Jenni Middleton, editor of Professional Beauty magazine commented:
“Our expectation was that we’d see standards drop this year. Times are tough, it’s hard to keep motivated and it’s even harder to get money in the till to spend on the little flourishes that set you apart. But what the mystery shoppers, my editorial team and our judges have consistently found is that the standard has been even higher this year. When the going gets tough, the tough cleanse, tone and moisturise.”

Without much further ado, the winners are…

Nail Salon of the Year
Winner Nailspa, Huddersfield

Specialist Salon of the Year
Winner Cupcake Mum, London
Highly Commended Ministry of Waxing, London

Beauty Salon of the Year (Three rooms or fewer)
Sponsored by St Tropez
Winner OMG Hair & Beauty, Swindon

Boutique Spa of the Year
Sponsored by Strip Distribution
Winner The Dorchester Spa, London

Male Grooming Salon of the Year
Sponsored by BABTAC
Winner Gentlemen’s Tonic, London

Best New Salon of the Year
Sponsored by Dermalogica
Winner Gina Conway Aveda Lifestyle Salon & Spa, London

Day Spa of the Year
Winner Spa London York Hall, GLL

Beauty Salon of the Year (Four rooms or more)
Sponsored by Fake Bake
Winner Beauty Time, Bristol
Highly Commended Zen Lifestyle, Edinburgh

Outstanding Contribution to the Industry

Winner Noella Gabriel

If you’re still looking for inspiration for Mother’s Day, why not treat the most special lady in your life to a spot of pampering with one of this year’s best of British salons and spas?

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Condé Nast Traveller Reader Spa Awards – the results are in!

Friday, September 25th, 2009

Winner of the Best Day Spa in Britain

By Catriona Innes

Spas across the globe have been waiting with bated breath, hoping they’ll be honored with a prestigious Condé Nast Traveller Reader Spa Award. The well travelled readers of the magazine have been voting for everything from their favourite local spas to far flung retreats. Previous winners have included the luxurious Bulgari Spa in Milan and the modern Bliss Spa in Soho, New York. So, where have Condé Nast readers been primping and preening themselves this year? Read on to find out who was crowned queen of spas…

UK – the best of British spa-ing
The awards confirmed that you don’t have to fly half way across the world to be pampered. London came up trumps with Spa Illuminata in Mayfair winning the prize for Best Day Spa in Britain, while Surrey’s Grayshott Spa also walked away with the top prize for Best Spa Retreat. Up in the North, the ladies’ favourite Waterfall Spa in Leeds was awarded fifth place in the Best Day Spa category for its opulent surroundings where you can relax with a gourmet meal in between treatments.

Not only do we do well with our day spas, but we have so many amazing hotel spas that Condé Nast had to create a whole new category for them! The winner of the first Best Hotel Spa in Britain was the Mandarin Oriental in Hyde Park, London which was awarded for its top accommodation- and with a choice of six pillows and sumptuous Irish linen for guests to slumber in we can see why!

Overseas – Spa, spa away
Iceland’s natural resources were praised when the tranquil Blue Lagoon Spa waltzed away with the top prize for Best Medical Spa. Guests can bathe in geo-thermal sea water and shower beneath a waterfall at the all-natural retreat. Mayr&More in Austria was also awarded for its exquisite food and Adler Thermae in Tuscany for their fitness programmes.

The French and the Spanish are both renowned for achieving their glowing good looks without trying too hard and as a result they have produced some of the best spas in the world. Condé Nast readers especially loved Spa Nuxe in Paris, which won The Best Day Spa Overseas and The Spa at The Marques Riscal Hotel in Spain which won the Best Hotel Spa in Europe.

Scooping four nominations and winning the Best Hotel Spa in Asia and India, The Six Senses Spa chain should feel proud of their achievements.  It was their Earth Spa in Hua Hin, Thailand that won the trophy as readers said their body treatments were impossible to beat!
The most important prize of the night for Condé Nast Traveller’s Number One Spa in the World was awarded to the spa at Hotel Marques Riscal in Rioja, Spain (who also won the Best Hotel Spa in Europe.) It seems incorporating wine into your treatments provides a winning formula…

So, next time you’re feeling a bit low and need a spa pick-me-up trust the readers of Condé Nast Traveller and choose one of their recommended spas. You’re bound to leave feeling relaxed, revived and ready to cast your vote for next year’s awards.

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Award-winning services

Monday, April 6th, 2009

TrophyThe 2008 Olive Awards winners have been announced and the video of the evening is now on the website so you can see what you missed. The Wahanda team think this is a really important award and were thrilled to be able to support it.

Over the past few years a lot of emphasis has been placed on the design and branding of the wellness experience. Unfortunately, that has meant that employee satisfaction and training has been given shortthrift, even though, ultimately, the customer’s spa experience usually comes down to the staff and therapists. For instance, although there have been millions spent on re-design, we know of only one major chain of spas with a Human Resource Executive in the UK.

Recently, it seems that the wellness industry is starting to focus more on employee satisfaction and therapists – it was even the main focus of last year’s Global Spa Summit.  Unfortunately even those with the best of intentions have had few tools to measure success in this area until now. The Olive Awards are given to the best employers within the field of wellness and integrated health as voted by the employees themselves. Unlike almost anything else we’ve seen, the awards are passed on statistical measurement of the satisfaction ratings of the employees themselves and is completely transparent. Employees complete an anonymous on-line survey and each company is presented with a report outlining their results.

Congratulations to the winners but also to everyone who entered this year’s Olive Awards. By simply participating you have all shown that you are committed to improving this important element of our industry’s long-term success.

And the 2008 winners are…

Large Business Winner: Destination Skin
Medium Business Winner: Dove Spa Bromley
Small Business Winner: Dove Spa Chorleywood

We’re looking forward to next year’s winners!

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