Health and beauty: Regis Spa Salon, Jenners, Edinburgh

By Alice Wyllie
Published on 09/07/2012 00:00

EMERGING from the lift on to the top floor of Jenners, I try to get my bearings. The New Town is on my left, right? Princes Street Gardens is on my right. I think.

I’m confused because it’s difficult to believe that I’m five floors above one of the busiest corners of the city. It’s almost difficult to believe I’m in the city at all.

I’ve stepped into the newly-revamped Regis Spa Salon in the rafters of the iconic department store. Once a little dark, a little dull, it’s put on its best face and is looking slick, modern and vibrant. Not so much as to alienate the older customers who come in for a weekly blow-dry, but enough to entice a younger crowd via the warren of lifts and stairwells that are a part of the shop’s charm.

All is white, everything gleams, and the large space is organised into zones depending on treatments. Clean lines, slick leather furniture and modern styling with a slightly retro edge make this a space you might want to linger in.

While a Morningside lady has her hair teased into an enormous white beehive, a twentysomething is having her hair styled in long, loose waves. It’s rare to see a salon which speaks to two such different clients, but this seems to 
pull it off.

No beehive for me. I’m whisked first to the nail bar for a manicure in a shade of smokey mink. Next up, while I wave my nails in the air in the hapless way that’s supposed to make them dry faster, is a cut and blow-dry.

I measure a salon’s worth based on its blow dry in the way that one might measure a hotel based on its club sandwich. The rise of hair straighteners has killed off decent blow dries, so if you want a good one, take a tip from the Morningside lady beside me – whose hair is bigger than Cheryl Cole’s in a wind machine – and come here. I leave with Middleton-level hair that’s as sleek and shiny as my nails.

I cross the road to Waverley Station, jump on the train to London, and have my nails photographed by a street-style photographer as soon as I arrive. You can’t say chicer than that.

ALICE WYLLIE

Regis Spa Salon, Jenners, 48 Princes Street, Edinburgh (0131-225 9645, www.regissalons.co.uk)