A young salon owner has been nominated for two prestigious beauty awards.

Taylor Keig, 26, owns Illusion Creative Beauty on Glen Falcon Road in Douglas. She’s up for the UK Hair and Beauty Awards’ categories Best Hair Extension Salon in the UK and Best Hair Extensions in the UK.

She made the finals, for which she said thousands of hair and beauty specialists put themselves forward.

’I didn’t really expect to hear anything back, which was nice,’ she said. ’It’s good to get this far in the process.

’To be considered, you have to send photos of your work and they look at your social media and website as well. For the salon category, they read the reviews of people who have been to your salon as well.’

Miss Keig said she first started training in hair extensions four years ago after being made redundant. ’There weren’t many people doing it here, but I’d been doing my own for years so I thought I’d get qualified,’ she explained.

’I started Illusion Creative myself three years ago and was assisted by the Department for Enterprise’s Business Support Scheme, which was really helpful.’

She said that she’s acquired more than 100 customers currently waiting for appointments post-lockdown and overall about 130 customers.

Miss Keig thinks that having a smaller salon which feels more intimate and personable to customers is a part of her success.

She said: ’A lot of people have said to me that they like how it’s not so busy [in the salon], as they can have a conversation with me and not feel as though people are listening in or anything.

’You get to know your customers and it’s important to do that [as a business].’

She added: ’It’s lifted my spirits and it’s nice that the salon and my work’s been noticed our of hundreds of thousands of people.

’To be anywhere on that list means a lot.’

The UK Hair and Beauty Awards’ top 50 finalists will be announced virtually on the awards website this week, with celebrities and influencers in the hair and beauty industry taking part.