Cest La Vie to set up beauty academy

Ahmedabad-based family beauty salon firm Cest La Vie is planning to set up a full-fledged training academy in hair and skin care for aspirants in the beauty salon industry.

The firm, which runs several beauty salons in Ahmedabad, Surat, Gandhidham and Indore, will launch the academy in the next six months. On offer are courses in hair and skin care, other beauty products and services.

Cest La Vie may also tie up with beauty academies in London for affiliation and further studies. "A tie-up with an international academy will help the aspirants pursue further courses in this growing industry. Currently, we have very few such academies in India and such tie-ups will help the students with international exposure as well," Cest La Vie Director Sonia Ahuja said.

Ahuja added that the firm is expecting to enrol atleast 25 students in the first batch and may introduce other courses later. Apart from an academy, Cest La Vie also plans to launch bigger lifestyle salons in Ahmedabad, which will be spread across an area of 2500-5000 sq.ft. The firm may also set up a wellness spa in th near future.

Typically a beauty salon built in an area of between 1300 and 1400 sq.ft requires an investment of Rs 12-20 lakhs, Ahuja said. Lifestyle salons, which are bigger in size and offer multiple brands, will require higher investment of around Rs 30 lakh.

Cest La Vie recently tied up with US-based hair products brand 'Paul Mitchelle'. Till now it had an exclusive tie-up with L'Oreal for the latter's products.

"Offering more brands at our beauty salons tends to confuse the customer. Hence we stuck to a single brand and later added Paul Mitchelle. But our lifestyle salons will offer multiple brands and more services," Ahuja said.