Gazal's: From basement salon to Upper Brook Street

Mrs Singh came to England in 2010, when her husband found her work as a beautician in Harlow. It was his idea to go further and start something of their own. "This idea came from my husband's mind," she recalls. "He said, oh let's open a business."

The couple looked at several spots around London, and the last place they stumbled on was the Buttermarket.

"We went everywhere," she says. "In the last place we came to the Buttermarket, and we spoke with Colin, the manager. He was so lovely, so nice." As Mrs Singh remembers it, he simply told them to make sure they kept things safe, and gave them the space downstairs.

It was 2011, and Mrs Singh was heavily pregnant with her younger daughter. "I was so nervous," she says. "My husband held our hand. He said, 'Don't worry, you'll be fine.'" She gave birth not long after opening, and her other daughter grew up in the salon, watched over by the customers who would become the shop's extended family.

Growing up in the trade

Her elder daughter, Santghai, was already a teenager by the time the Buttermarket salon was getting off the ground. She was at her mother's side from the start, learning the trade from the ground up. "She held my hand all the time," Mrs Singh says. "She was so young. I told her, 'No, no, don't.' My friend said, 'No, she has to learn.' And she learned."

Santghai describes it as simply part of growing up with immigrant parents. "When you don't have anything, if there's no inheritance or anything, you move here, it's a completely new life," she says. "You have to start a new life together. It just feels like it's your responsibility to help. And you want to do that."

Being in the same spot for 15 years has built something that goes well beyond a customer list. "It's not even that difficult, only because they just feel like family," Santghai says. "It doesn't feel like we're doing anything out of not being ourselves. We care about you. We love you, and you're our family as well."

Mrs Singh agrees. "We've been here for such a long time. If I break down, they help me. If they break down, we hug each other." Regulars have become friends, and friends have, in turn, become part of the salon's own story over the years.

From the beauty chair to the pharmacy counter

While she was growing up behind the till, Santghai was also nursing a second passion. "I've always had a lot of love for science and beauty simultaneously," she says. That pulled her in two directions at once – one towards the salon she'd grown up in, the other towards the sciences. She chose to study pharmacy, giving her what she describes as "a good clinical base" in anatomy and patient care, before going on to train in aesthetics too.

It is that combination – pharmacist and beautician, clinician and daughter – that has now opened the doors of Gazal's newest chapter. Santghai has folded her medical training into it, and the result is a second site on Upper Brook Street offering medical aesthetics alongside the beauty treatments the salon was built on. "We expanded because we can give additional treatments to our existing client base," she explains. "Integrating both the beauty and the love of science together into one place."

The Buttermarket salon remains open exactly as it was, but the new clinic has given Mrs Singh a brighter space to work in for the first time in 15 years. "For her, she feels a lot happier being here, seeing the sun shine a lot more, rather than being in the basement," Santghai says. The team has grown too, with a few fully qualified staff now working alongside mother and daughter. "We've got a few people working with us, fully qualified," Santghai says, "but they're just like family."

What the new clinic is really for

For Santghai, the new site is as much about listening as it is about treatments. "I want to be a person that they can come to as a trusted medical professional if they've got any skin concerns," she says, citing conditions such as acne, eczema and psoriasis that can affect people's confidence as much as their skin. "I'm here to listen to your concerns, and here to create a treatment plan that works for you."

That starts, she says, with a conversation rather than a prescription. "You might come and say, 'This is what I want. But I'm here to have that consultation with you, to get to the root cause.' Sometimes what a patient thinks is best for them might not actually be the best thing for them." It is, in many ways, the same philosophy her mother built the Buttermarket salon on 15 years ago – just with a clinical toolkit added.

Crucially, Santghai is clear that the new clinic is not just for those seeking fillers or injectables. "Sometimes it's not even that you need fillers or anti-wrinkle injections," she says. "Sometimes it's just having hydrated skin, or a proper skincare routine." She wants the space to welcome anyone, whatever their concern and whatever their budget. "I want a lot of education when it comes to skincare, but also for patients who want a more affordable approach. I want to have both kinds of approaches for everyone."

The bottom line

Gazal's began 15 years ago with a nervous young mother and a small basement unit. It has grown into something far bigger than a beauty salon – a place where generations of the same family have worked side by side, and where customers have long since stopped feeling like customers. As Santghai and Mrs Singh open their doors on Upper Brook Street, the setting may be brighter, but the values driving it remain exactly the same: care, community, and a determination to make people feel a little more confident in their own skin.

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