We need a beauty industry icon to step up and lead our salons to receive the respect that we truly deserve, and with decades of experience bringing brands to Britain, from Aesop and AVEDA to Stila and L’Occitane, who better to spearhead that movement than our next special guest – Millie Kendall MBE.
As CEO of the British Beauty Council, Mille plays a vital role in garnering interest from stakeholders outside of the beauty industry, giving salon owners a voice to be heard by the government. Behind all of this, she also has some incredible stories to share, from the time her picture was subjected to a failed attempt to remove a strand of hair, to how a bottle of Windex resulted in her father’s removal from a Boots store…
Millie is a strong advocate for salon owners encouraging change from local government – listen to her endorsement for action from MPs on this episode of The Salonology Show!
This episode of The Salonology Show covers:
- The role of the British Beauty Council in the industry
- How women can break through to the top beauty jobs
- Improving respect for the beauty industry
- Future of regulations on treatments
- Pressuring the government to support salons
Episode highlights
“I was just not really focused on school, so I started working as an assistant in a hair salon when I was 13. It was a Saturday job – nowadays you can’t work at that age!” – 6:06 – Millie Kendall
“I think that a lot of the career moves I’ve made have been when I’ve seen an opportunity and there isn’t a clear career path to it.” – 9:30 – Millie Kendall
“They said to me, ‘Why do you want to work for Maxi’ and I said ‘Because you need to change the name, it sounds like a sanitary towel’.” – 13:10 – Millie Kendall
“I know a lot of friends whose careers have just blown up on social media or they’ve been featured on This Morning, and they manage it really well. It’s a full time job managing that sort of profile on social.” – 18:44 – Millie Kendall
“One of the reasons why I wanted to do the British Beauty Council was I felt that we didn’t quite have the level of respect we need.” – 20:00 – Millie Kendall
“Our workforce is predominantly female, it’s just that there are generally men still in the top jobs, which I think is just astounding. I think that’s changing.” – 22:35 – Millie Kendall
“The British beauty industry is iconic, and very innovative. We started to work with the Department for International Trade, which hopefully will help us to garner investment into the British beauty sector.” – 31:55 – Millie Kendall
“You can start a career in the beauty industry at any stage of your life, you can have kids that go to school, you can work part time, you can work one day a week, three days a week. So we are very inclusive in that regard. But I do think these one day courses that teach fillers and Botox need to be eradicated.” – 37:50 – Millie Kendall
“Petitions don’t work. By the time you’ve reached 100,000, signatures, it goes in a queue of other petitions that have reached 100,000 signatures. And you’ll be lucky if you get it seen in Parliament within four months, if at all.” – 45:44 – Millie Kendall
Links & references
Ryan Power: https://www.instagram.com/itsryanpower/
Hollie Power: https://www.instagram.com/holliefromsalonology/
Salonology Superstars: https://www.facebook.com/groups/salonology
Millie Kendall MBE: https://www.instagram.com/milliekendall/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/millie-kendall-mbe-4b205613/
British Beauty Council: https://www.instagram.com/britishbeautycouncil/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/british-beauty-council/
The Courage to Change: https://bit.ly/The-Courage-To-Change
UK MP Letter Template: https://britishbeautycouncil.com/mp-files/local-mp-template-letter-for-uk.docx/
Scotland MP Letter Template: https://britishbeautycouncil.com/mp-files/local-mp-templat…ter-for-scotland.docx/
Get in touch: hello@salonology.uk