A new mobile beauty app has launched in Manchester offering manicures, facials and spray tans at home

A new mobile beauty app favoured by celebrities has launched in Manchester, which means you can enjoy manicures, massage, facials and even spray tans in the comfort of your home.

Not only that, you can book a therapist to visit your office to give you a blow dry or to a hotel to apply make-up before a night out.

“Basically, it enables you to have a beauty treatment anytime, and in any place,” says co-founder Emily Ewart-Perks who launched the app in 2016 in London.

“My co-founder is my brother, he’s the genius in the family,” says Emily, laughing, but it was her own experience that inspired the idea back in 2013.

“I was on my second maternity leave. I’d had children far too close together and was stuck in the house with a small baby and a toddler and I was thinking how do I get my nails done? I didn’t really want to get a babysitter for that and didn’t particularly want to take my children down to the local nail bar to be asphyxiated by acrylic fumes.”

She had a look online to see if she could have someone come to her, but discovered it was a minefield. At the same time her brother, Rider Latham, was planning on becoming a strategy consultant and attending tech conferences where he witnessed the new business models being pitched.

“It was very much the garage comes to you, or shirt cleaning comes to you, all a bit blokey and a bit boring,” says Emily.

“But Rider said he really wanted to do something, and I said what about beauty comes to you, because that’s what I was looking for.”

For the next few years, they both focused on their respective careers, “but the idea sat there and grew bigger and I thought we’ve got to do this”.

So, Emily gave up her job as a consumer PR in 2015, Rider gave up his in 2016 and they switched the app on that same year.

“We’ve been very lucky that our premise is working with the best therapists in the business and if you work with the best people you get the best clients and they bring you the best people. It’s about quality and the business has grown through word of mouth,” says Emily.

Famous clients include Kimberley Walsh, Faye Brookes, Georgia May Foote, Mollie King, Vogue Williams, Vicky Pattison and “and we get Amanda Holden ready every morning”.

“But we were finding a lot of our VIP clients are based in northwest, or were travelling for
work, and they were saying we wish you were in Manchester.”

Ahead of their launch in the north at the beginning of the month, Emily and the team spent a few months recruiting therapists through a rigorous vetting process.

“Every single therapist is tested in every single treatment they do with us as every treatment has to be on point. The professionals we’ve met have been just incredible, they’re sensational. And knowing we’re empowering an army of women across the country to be their own boss and earn money on their terms and around childcare is really exciting.”

Treatments include gel pedicures and manicures (from £35), massage (from £50), make-up (from £34) and hairstyling (from £30).

You can book a therapist to come to you wherever you might be in Manchester, but the app covers as far as Chester, the outskirts of Liverpool, Stockport and over to Huddersfield with appointments available from 7am to 10pm.

“It means if you don’t get back from work until 7pm, and all the salons are closed, this is a really convenient solution. Or if you’re a mum, you can have a manicure while you watch Netflix and the kids are in bed,” says Emily.

“We’ve put the effort into making sure we’ve done the due diligence to find the best people in the northwest, and there’s that trust that permeates through everything we do.”

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