The Peacock Rooms
A quirky 17th century building on London Road, is home to The Peacock Rooms, a beauty salon which is as unique as its location.
Owner Sarah Rumsey purposely chose the setting, opposite Hoad’s Shoes as it fitted her own individual style and she knew it was the perfect place to set up her business in Sevenoaks in 2016.
“The salon is very chilled and it’s decorated with a really colourful vibe to it”, Sarah explains, “that is me and I wanted my salon to reflect who I am”.
The Salon’s very own living walls
As well as providing a relaxed place for her beauty and hair treatments, Sarah also makes sure that the business is as sustainable as possible. Being eco friendly runs through everything the small team of five do from using renewable energy, to having their waste sorted and recycled. The Peacock Rooms is a member of the Green Salon Collective and through the initiative they are able to recycle all their aluminium highlight foils, leftover colour products, PPE equipment, paper and even their clients’ hair.
“It’s collected up and used to help absorb oil spills in the sea”, Sarah says, “our customers can feel really good after having a treatment and also knowing that they are helping the environment too”!
The Peacock Rooms has developed a lot over the last five years. It was doing well and then the pandemic hit and like all other salons, they were forced to close their doors. However Sarah describes herself as “an eternal optimist” and when they were able to reopen last year, her team pulled out the stops to make sure they went over and above the safety requirements for themselves and their clients. “We were working 12 hour shifts to get through the backlog of appointments but we did it and we did it safely” Sarah says. Her team are currently on furlough but they are looking forward to returning.
Sustainability in action
Sarah is clearly very proud of her staff who she describes as “fantastic, brilliant and a great bunch of girls”, and she now feels confident that she can develop the hair and make up services for weddings and special events that she loves. She also has another string to her bow. Her past career as a nurse means she is also somehow finding time to retrain to be a part-time vaccinator alongside her work in the salon.
There’s no doubting Sarah’s determination, and with beauty salons now open, there is certainly plenty to show off at The Peacock Rooms.
By Lisa Whitbread
