Professional Beauty – January 2025

Summary

Right on course: choosing the best training leads Professional Beauty's January 2025 issue, with a 3-page feature on red and green flags in training courses. Screen time: making TikTok work for your business and a skin feature on how the skin is affected by giving up smoking, vaping and alcohol complete the cover package. The issue covers salon business strategy, treatment-room news and the #SupportOurSalons campaign that PB launched in response to industry budget pressures.

The news section opens with the #SupportOurSalons campaign, 71% of Gen Z buying skincare based on influencer recommendations, and the impact of budget adjustments on salon costs. Hellen Ward's Ward's World column prepares businesses for 2025. Ask the Experts covers serums versus creams and colour theory for make-up artists. The features include Talking to Stuart Angus, Center Parcs' director of spa, who shares his leadership principles and changes at Aqua Sana Forest Spa sites.

The On the Cover section expands on the training feature with Cirsten Hannken (general manager of Dermalogica UK and Ireland) in Skin in the Game, the inside story of Ial Spa, and a Spotlight on magnesium. Andrew Hansford argues why therapists need to be stricter with clients. New products from Obagi, JK Group and La Beeby feature in the treatment-news section.

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Content Guide

▸ Cover Features

p.42 · Red and Green Flags in Training
A guide to vetting beauty training courses, with 7 green flags (accredited awarding bodies, insurance-company recognition, practical-assessment hours) and 5 red flags (no post-qualification support, claims of "qualification in 2 days," unrecognised awarding-body logos). Courses with at least 60 practical hours had a 90% pass rate in insurance-company audits.

p.50 · New Year, New Skin: Giving up smoking, vaping and alcohol
A dermatologist explains the timeline: skin elasticity improves after 2 weeks smoke-free, the microcirculation normalises after 4 weeks, and alcohol-related dehydration reverses after 10 days. Before-and-after VISIA complexion analysis images from a 12-week study illustrate the changes.

p.60 · TikTok Tips: Make the platform work for your business
A strategy guide for salon owners using TikTok. The 60-second demonstration video outperforms the 3-minute tutorial by 300% in completion rate. The article recommends posting at 11am on Tuesdays for the highest salon-owner demographic engagement.

▸ Features

p.39 · Talking to Stuart Angus
Center Parcs' director of spa discusses the redesign of Aqua Sana Forest Spa sites and his leadership framework. Each spa now includes a salt-inhalation room and a cedarwood sauna after guest-demand analysis. Staff retention improved from 18 months to 36 months after the introduction of a 4-day working week.

p.46 · Skin in the Game: Cirsten Hannken, Dermalogica UK and Ireland
Hannken discusses the brand's 2025 focus on skin-barrier health and professional-only retail channels. Dermalogica's UK salon network grew by 12% in 2024. She advises therapists to retail at least one home-care product per client to maintain treatment results between visits.

p.54 · Inside Ial Spa
The new wellness facility at Coleg Cambria in Wrexham, built as a training centre for beauty students. The spa includes 6 treatment rooms and a flotation tank. Students complete 200 supervised hours before treating paying clients at a 50% discount.

p.56 · Spotlight on Magnesium
The ingredient of the season: magnesium oil, lotions and bath flakes for muscle relaxation and stress reduction. A 2024 study cited found that transdermal magnesium increased serum magnesium levels by 14% after 4 weeks of daily application.

▸ Regulars

p.28 · Ward's World: Preparing your business for 2025
Hellen Ward advises salon owners to review their pricing structure against the 8.2% National Living Wage increase effective April 2025. She recommends a 6% service-price increase to maintain margins, timed for the spring appointment book opening.

p.32 · Ask the Experts
This month: serums versus creams (serums deliver active ingredients at higher concentrations because they use smaller molecules) and colour theory for make-up artists (the opposite of red on the colour wheel is green, making green concealer the correct choice for neutralising redness).

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Editor's Take

Professional Beauty's January issue delivers the trade-specific intelligence that salon owners and therapists need, particularly the training-course vetting guide and the National Living Wage pricing advice. The #SupportOurSalons campaign coverage is timely, though the issue could have pushed harder on the policy response. The Stuart Angus interview is the strongest piece — he gives specific staff-retention data and spa-design rationale that other directors do not share publicly. The weakness is the magnesium spotlight: it is essentially a PR-friendly ingredient profile that reads like it was sourced from a supplement brand's press release. The TikTok tips article is useful but assumes zero platform knowledge, which will frustrate therapists who are already posting. This issue is for the professional salon owner and employed therapist in the UK and Ireland, not for the student or hobbyist.

Strengths
• Training-course vetting with pass-rate data from insurance audits
• Stuart Angus interview with specific staff-retention metrics
• National Living Wage pricing advice with 6% increase recommendation

Weaknesses
• Magnesium ingredient profile reads as vendor-sourced content
• TikTok guide pitched at too-basic a level for active users

Verdict: Recommended — Strong business intelligence for salon owners offsets the softer ingredient features.