The salons history so far…
Rachael D'Aguiar, Owner of D'Aguiar: hair.skin.nails
D’Aguiar: hair.skin.nails was born from a passion and has been a labour of love for founder Rachael D’Aguiar since November 2001 when D’Aguiar Beauty Therapy began its humble existence in a spare room in Rachael’s rented Mt Eden villa. Rachael was a one women band for almost 2 years before she realised her vision of a greater D’Aguiar team and a larger community for women. In fact many of the women who used to visit Rachael in her home helped build the foundation blocks of the new D’Aguiar: hair.skin.nails clientele.
Although the new Symonds St premises were a huge upgrade, many will miss the friendly Xena the cat sitting on their stomach whilst they were having their monthly facial (Xena misses their attention too!)
Finding a new premises and the cash to set up a new Salon felt like a pipeline dream for Rachael at times, so when Rachael saw a tiny random advert in the New Zealand Herald simply reading, “Hair Salon, Symonds St, $500/wk, Rachael thought it was too good to be true.
After a whirlwind virtually sleepless 7 weeks of negotiating, lawyers and hiring staff, D’Aguiar: hair.skin.nails opened its doors with a party (of course) on October 1st 2003. Ruki the previous leaseholder, who stayed on to rent a chair for several years after Rachael took over the salon, didn’t know what had hit her.
The Salon opened with Rachael plus 3 staff. Keri, Rachael’s cousin joined the team for 9 months as receptionist – thank god because no-one else knew anything about computers and Aimee stayed on to do a wonderful 3 year innings as our hairdresser, only to move on for further training and development.
The first couple of years were intense. Rachael can literally point out the wrinkles that were created over that period. But D’Aguiar: hair.skin.nails blossomed into a friendly supportive fabulous place to work and visit. Rachael was featured in a particular article for ‘Her Business’ Magazine called ‘Love your work’….and it’s true to say there’s not many people who love it more.
Rachael, Aimee and Nicole continued to grow the business doing annual competitions for which they achieved many merits and of course hundreds of weddings for which D’Aguiar has built a sought after reputation. Rachael’s previous freelancing hair and makeup work and her frequent work as the hair & makeup artist for the Bride and Groom Magazine gave even more credibility to the salon as a hair and makeup destination.
Word got out and D’Aguiar was asked to be the official hair and beauty salon of TV series ‘10 Years Younger’ and was the salon that the NZ Herald chose to recruit as its enticement to gain more subscriptions. Today, Rachael and her team are often used as expert advisors to watchdog TV3 show ‘Target’.
When Nicole left for Sydney her boots were so big to fill that they remained vacant for a while and Rachael once again took care of all the beauty side of the business.
Eventually Jessica came on board as a full time beauty therapist to relieve Rachael of her 70 hour plus weeks. Jess stayed with D’Aguiar for 1 ½ years until she too moved to Sydney.
With a bit more time up her sleeve once Jess was on board, Rachael went about designing her own range of makeup brushes. Over 11 months Rachael created, crafted and perfected the D’Aguiar Pro Brushes which are now available at wholesale rates in the salon or at the online shop
In April 2007 Rachael married her partner Chris and with marriage came shared responsibility so they worked as a team to grow and improve the business. Rachael and Chris enlisted the support and mentoring of Greg Milner and team at Worldwide Salon Marketing. Within a few months of using the marketing tools provided by Worldwide Salon Marketing and the hard work of Chris and Rachael, the business grew almost 40% allowing Chris and Rachael to hire 2 more beauty therapists (Michelle & Marg) – or the M & M’s as we called them.
This was no mean feat to find the 2 perfect therapists as Rachael wouldn’t hand her clientele over to just anyone. She kept on working through her RSI putting off treatment until she could confidently hand the reins over.
In early 2009 Rachael and Chris went into their next business venture and purchased the New Zealand Franchise of Worldwide Salon Marketing, providing marketing and mentoring services to salons throughout New Zealand. There are currently over 70 salons in the program in New Zealand and Rachael and Chris get huge satisfaction out of helping their fellow salon owners. Rachael is also at the start of a promising International Speaking career and has been hired for events in Australia as well as throughout New Zealand.
And the salon has continued to expand even through the recession in 2009 with Carmen, Roxanne, Ivy, Laura and Borni all joining the team.
Today D’Aguiar is a bustling busy salon that strives for perfection and customer care. In fact they solidly stand by their 100% money back guarantee. The salon continues to organise 3 or 4 successful promotional evenings each year and also supports causes such as ‘Look Good, Feel Better,’ in fact our last fundraising event raised over $1400.00
Each of the staff at D’Aguiar could be the subject of a ‘why I love my work’ article which fills the New York loft style, large salon with oodles of positive energy! We can’t wait to see you in the salon soon!!!
PH: 379 3112
Location: 173 Symonds St, Mt Eden, Auckland (Near the Khyber Pass Rd Intersection)
Email: info@daguiar.co.nz