A BOLTON hairdressing salon has made a £30,000 investment to upgrade its premises and offer wig services to a variety of clients.

Bridge Hair Studio in Blackburn Road is owned by Nicola Harrison. An experienced hairdresser, she has had the busy salon for 18 years, originally training at Bolton College and in North Warwickshire. She gained experience at various hairdressers and on cruise ships before opening the salon, originally with her hairdresser mother Mrs Jean Rose.

“Offering a wig service is something I’ve wanted to do for quite a while but the time was never right,” explained Nicola. She had previously helped cancer patients she knew with buying and styling wigs and felt that this was an important part of the service she wanted to eventually offer.

“I know how important a woman’s hair is to her and how it matters to keep her identity, be more like herself, even if she has to lose her hair through treatment or by other illness.”

Nicola decided to both improve the premises and provide wig services at the same time. She has added a new downstairs area where clients can have privacy for styling along with a new wig salon upstairs and a separate room which is now used for beauty services. The move has both extended and upgraded the salon.

Nicola is stocking both real hair and acrylic wigs. “Acrylic wigs are very different now to what they used to be, much better and more natural,” she stated. “And they can now be cut and styled to be very similar to a client’s usual hair.”

She has suppliers in the UK and America with the wigs varying in price from short ones at around £140 to long, curly wigs at around £1,600.

Interestingly, Nicola has also found that many clients just like the idea of having a wig for a change of hairstyle, especially for holidays like going on a cruise.

She is already attracting clients from a wide area and is “delighted” with the response to both the salon’s extended premises and the additional services it can offer.

Caption: AHEAD OF THE COMPETITION – Bridge Hair Studio team, from left, Kane Murphy, Liam Watson, Nicola Harrison, Caroline Rigby, Andrea Williams and Rebecca Holden