The inside scoop from The Beauty Party by Salon Chat
By Alex Fox | 31 March 2022 | Events, News
The Hotel Cromwell in Stevenage proved a marvellous location for the first Salon Chat party held to celebrate nail community spirit and comradeship.
Hosted by nail professionals Bella Porter from Buckingham and Kelly Colley of Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, the event was a spin-off from the duo’s Salon Chat Instagram live tutorials that began in 2020.
“Salon Chat started by accident,” recalls Kelly Colley. “It was March 2020 and Boris Johnson hadn’t made it clear whether businesses were to stay open or would close. At that time, Bella reached out to me via Instagram to ask if I was going to close and I replied that I didn’t know what to do. She then suggested we present an Instagram live to ask people what they were doing. This was the birth of the Salon Chat community.
“We then went live Sunday-Thursday at 8pm for 18 months in order to keep viewers entertained and educated with free nail art tutorials, games nights, quizzes and we also brought on guests to change it up.
“The event idea was actually the brainchild of our viewers during the first lockdown. We’d created such a warm community that the viewers wanted to meet each other in person. This spawned the idea of a party. It was originally meant to be held in October 2020 when we thought the pandemic would have subsided. Since it was nowhere near at that time, we waited and rescheduled it for March 2022.”
The event saw 67 attendees from all over the nail, beauty, hair and make-up industries who rocked the night away on the dancefloor while immersing in a raffle and karaoke too. Welcome drinks and a buffet were included in the ticket and everyone let their hair down, queued up for the photo booth and adorned bejewelled face transfers before carriages arrived at midnight.
“Bella and I have formed a fantastic friendship over the last two years and now work together as educators for Lucy Pastorelli tools,” notes Kelly. “We continue to run Salon Chat every Sunday at 8pm on our business Instagram pages, @lavishnailsss and @bella_beautygarage, and it was a such a success that we shall definitely be hosting another party in the future.”
The event was sponsored by Home of Nail Art (HONA) & Louella Belle who gave to the goody bags and raffle.Goodly bags were filled with products from Lucy Pastorelli Tools, HONA, TNBL, Louella Belle, Sienna X, Brillbird, The Unicorn’s Den, Charlie’s Nail Art Supplies and Glossify.
