Beauty Therapist
Saks

Danielle S

00:00:01 My name’s Danielle. I’m from Leeds. I work in David Lloyd’s Health and Fitness Club within Saks Hair and Beauty Salon. I’m a beauty therapist. I also specialise in an IPL hair-removal system which is very similar to laser, which removes hair permanently. People can come in and feel really stressed or down or have problems. They want to leave feeling energised, confident, looking great and feeling good.

00:00:33 When I was six years old, I’d say I was quite athletic. I’d like to have become something like a gymnast or an ice skater or something like that. I did pursue gymnastics when I was younger. That was a hobby I had from school and then when I moved to Leeds, I still continued it. I did other things like karate and things. I think that was to do with being brought up with three brothers. I used to fight in tournaments in Blackpool and stuff. I won a lot of medals. But then as I become a teenager, I got more into boys and other things: make-up and nails and stuff.

00:01:21 I grew up in Perth in Scotland. When I got to Leeds it was fine. I joined the last couple of weeks in primary school, made a few friends there and then followed those friends to high school. And it was okay. I found kids teased me a little bit about my accent. I was different. It was a really big eye-opener for me because I’ve seen a lot of different cultures, a lot of different ethnics which was very rare in Scotland where I came from. I felt more comfortable in myself at school as well. That was quite a big thing for me.

00:02:00 Travel and Tourism was something I always wanted to do from being younger, I suppose yeah, I did have a dream job actually, and that was from going on holiday and seeing, you know, travelling, you know, holiday reps in kind of their job role and I always thought that would be a really good way to travel the world.

00:02:22 So I decided to take it upon myself and do travel and tourism, attended a course at Park Lane College but when I did that course, I realised after six months it wasn’t what I expected and I left and thought I could choose another career which I’d be able to travel in as well. And beauty I could travel if I wanted to. I could work on cruise ships.

00:02:49 I decided to go travelling somewhere and my brother was already out in Australia travelling, so I thought I’d go. And I got a working visa, applied in the same way he did, decided to work out there for a year. Travelled to Sydney and went…I just went. I got a job straight away in the Hall of Beauty where I did two days a week work and I ran her salon kind of on my own after I’d been there for, you know, a couple of weeks.

00:03:25 What I found was everybody was leaving or travelling further up the coast and I kind of got to a loose end and all my family and friends in England or Scotland, they were all like, ‘it’s summer and everything. You should come back and…’. So I decided, okay, I’d go back. Impulse decision I suppose, and when I came back, I wished I was back there.

00:03:53 I am surprised to be in the beauty industry now as from when I was younger being really quite athletic and quite boisterous. I would have never have seen myself ending up here but I’m glad I have. ENDS