We’re right in the middle of the summer holidays, and while the recent sunny hot spell has given Kentishtowners a healthy glow, how will you keep it local when a little bit of topping up is the order of the day?
Squashed in between the chains and pubs as snugly as post-pedicure foam toe separators, K-Town’s beauty and tanning salons may not be the glossiest or most glamorous in the capital, but their names underline all that’s unpretentious about our neighbourhood. Here are my five favourites:
1. Hair Today
This one’s dropped an ‘h’ leaving a perfectly positioned apostrophe, so phonetically it sounds like pure local Norf London. It’s like the name asked for a trim and came out with a bit less than it bargained for. 387 Kentish Town Road
2. Top to Toe
When said out loud, all those ‘t’s’ in the salon’s dainty name chirp up like a happy little jingle. Timidly perched above ‘Hair Today’, its big bold bouffant-inducing hair salon of a big sister. 387 Kentish Town Road
3. Sun City
Perhaps when naming Kentish Town’s tanning salon Sun City the owners were hoping to flood NW5 in constant sunshine. They could have been onto something, had 2013 not brought us weeks of the hot stuff. Then you see the sign and it’s annoyingly ugly, like that perfectly polished nail that you chip on your zip as you are opening up your purse to pay. Argh! Anyway, real tans are bad – get yours from a bottle! 270 Kentish Town Road
4. Tips ‘n’ Toes
Yes, we have noticed the similarity between the salon and its neighbour’s moniker, but perhaps this Vietnamese run nail bar was going for a prosaic number and ‘Fingernails ‘n’ Toenails’ didn’t quite have the same glamorous ring to it. 314 Kentish Town Road
5. Tanning Temple
Its, er, exotic title could be down to that geographical position, closer to ker-azy Camden, a gaggle of bronzed customers pouring inside. Last year, the joint had a complete makeover. I like it when salons do this: isn’t it only fair when they spend the rest of their time making everyone else look pretty? 204 Kentish Town Road
Know of a pun-tastic local salon? Add it below…
4 thoughts on “‘Air today? Our Top 5 quirky salon names”
It’s not pun-tastic, but Blue Steel at the Tufnell Park end of Dartmouth Park Hill makes me wonder how seriously they take their work and whether I’d come out looking all Zoolander…
Blue steel is an absolutely fabulours barber and I would highly reccommend them. It is a family run business and offer a great service at reasonable prices. The name comes from Japanese barbering scissors. Give them a go!
enthralling article. Great read.
There is a shorditch-style-cool new salon on Kentish Town Road called Salon Sin. Looked on their facebook page and they have a client photo album titled ‘Saints or Sinners’ Ha ha I’ll be in the sinners section!