Unwind with a Cut, Colours, and Coffee
Get all three at one place – Unwind, a salon that comes with a full-service café attached. Neeti Chopra, with her husband and Co-partner Sushant Khandelwal, launched Unwind Unisex Salon & Café in late 2014 at Saket, New Delhi. The goal was to provide a space where people can completely disconnect from their busy lives, with a cup of coffee and/or a grooming session.
Neeti is a trained make-up artist with experience in the beauty and wellness industry in Dubai before she launched her business venture in India. Since the inception of the idea for Unwind, she has been closely involved in every aspect of running it smoothly — from designing the space and sourcing to hiring and collaborating with brands.
The salon offers services in hair, skin care, and beauty with products such as L’Oréal Professionnel, GKHair, and Macadamia, Ozone Organic Advantage, Casmara, O3+, Aroma Magic, M.A.C, Make-Up Studio, HUDA Beauty and Kryolan. They have six cutting stations, two beauty rooms, two mani-pedi stations, one treatment zone, and make-up room spread across a 2,000 sq. ft. area, while the Café occupies an attached 500 sq. ft. space.
Maintaining competitive pricing is crucial while ensuring the client receives the maximum quality of service.”We have modelled our salon and café in a manner, which gives the client more than their expectations while being extremely affordable at the same time – affordable Luxury is the term that goes with us in every way,” Neeti elaborates.
Neeti treats staffing as one of the vital factors for business success. She has been personally involved in conducting staff trials before hiring, thus making sure only the best care is given to their clients. As for maintaining the standards of conduct, Neeti explains, “Continued and ongoing training ensures proper learning and development of the latest techniques and skills. It increases employee engagement and also helps in boosting staff loyalty as they feel more valued and better equipped to stay ahead of the competition.”
Unwind has been actively collaborating with brands and beauty professionals to drive the business with unique ideas while maintaining a balance between the growth of both the salon and the café. In terms of the challenges in business, Neeti concludes, “The main challenge is to ensure efficient management of the available space, sourcing of materials, proper lighting, etc. Management and motivating salon staff remains one of the major tasks to ensure survival in such a dynamic industry. Acquisition of new clients and the retention of existing ones also need constant attention.”