Everything’s going just Peachy as owners celebrate salon success
Two Sunderland entrepreneurs are enjoying a great start to business life – a year after they began trading in dramatic fashion.
Lucy Richardson and Lauren Richardson made their dreams come true when they launched Peachy Studio as a hair and beauty studio – but they did it during the pandemic.
But that was not the only challenge as Lucy was nine months pregnant when the business opened.
Now the business has celebrated its first birthday and sohasLauren’sdaughterThea.
One year after opening, Lauren looked back and said: “My little girl shares her birthday with the salon.”
She may have been nine months pregnant but Lauren helped business partner Lucy with preparing the premises for opening. She worked for two weeks before taking time off and said: “The salon was totally renovated.”
The spruce-up often saw the business partners toiling until 11pm or midnight but they now have their dream of a salon they love as well as a place where people who are ‘starting can enjoy working’.
If that wasn’t enough, the business is in the running for the new-look Sunderland Echo Business Excellence Awards and Lucy said: “We would be over the moon to get somewhere in the competition, but it is about getting our name on the map.”
The Peachy Studio team includes owners and ‘best friends’ Lucy Richardson and Lauren Richardson, hairdresser McKenzie Draper, Nadia Atkinson on lashes, beautician Sophie Rooney andLaurenMatuszekonnails.
The nomination for the Norfolk Street-based business said: “We have had the best year of our lives and only plan on growing bigger and bigger each year.
"Thepandemichitself-employed hairdressers and beauty therapists really hard so it was such a risk opening in July 2021 but it has turned out to be the best thing we ever did.”
Peachy has been nominated in the Best Independent Business category of the
awards which is new for 2022.
PeachyStudiobecomesthe latest entry in the awards but there is plenty of time to get your nomination in.
This year’s competition, now known as the Sunderland Echo Business ExcellenceAwards,hasawholehost of fantastic backers, including Sunderland City Council, who
are our partners in the competition and are the headline sponsors.
AlsoonboardaretheNorth East BIC, Chilli Mangoes, Marelli, Harrison and Brown, and Sunderland College. We thank them all for their outstanding support.
The awards will culminate with a glittering finals night in November at the Stadium of Light but if you want to be in the running, get your entries in nice and early.
The search has begun for this year’s contenders and we have already had an encouraging start.
If you want to join those early contenders for honours, there are some new categories as well as plenty of favourites from previous years.
Sunderland’s businesses are among the most ambitious, innovative, and hardworking in the world but is your business the best in Wearside and County Durham? Why not enter our awards and put yourself in the running to be a winner?