LeSalon; the on-demand beauty platform

LeSalon is an on-demand beauty services platform, supporting beauty therapists operating in the gig economy.

The UK-based startup has built an app that enables users to get quick access to beauty treatments. The app lets clients book treatments outside of their working hours and offers flexible career opportunities for beauty therapists.

Natasha Pilbrow is the founder and COO of LeSalon and launched the startup after recognising the struggles freelance professionals faced to get reliable and consistent work.

“We have our onboarding process of the therapists that work with us, which includes very clear stats about how the services should be done,” said Natasha Pilbrow. “So whoever you book, or whichever therapists you use, you get the same quality of service.”

The app has a fully automated booking process for clients and every therapist that joins the platform passes through a data protection and vetting process.

The key to the platform’s success is that it offers maximum flexibility. “We have no minimum requirements in terms of how much time you’re required to give us, so therapists are completely flexible. They just upload, choose which areas they want to work in, where they can travel to and accept bookings that come up within that area with the services that they do,” Pilbrow said.

“This enables women to have either a couple of bookings a week or more. There are different capabilities depending on what stage you’re at.”

As more women embrace the gig economy, the UK is seeing a steady increase in the number of female freelancers. While the gender pay gap still exists across different areas, Pilbrow hopes LeSalon will help to tackle the problem.

“I think a lot of women have felt somewhat undervalued and dispensable, we really embraced change to adjust that so that the therapists that work with us realise that they are skilled and that they have an important value,” she adds.