I’ve combined mental health nursing with beauty aesthetics at my new South Shields salon

The House of Calm, on Fowler Street, in South Shields was officially opened by Cllr Fay Cunningham, the Mayor of South Tyneside, on Friday, May 9.

The salon is owned by Shymaa Sword, a registered mental health nurse, who wanted to combine her nursing background with her beauty aesthetics work.

Situated at the site of the former Goldfinch Estate Agents, the salon aims to tailor the needs of the customer to how it operates to ensure that it is a safe and inclusive environment for everyone.

Speaking after the opening, Shymaa said: “So what we’ve created here is what we are hoping will be known as a safe space in South Shields.

“I know it is a salon but we also wanted it to be something different, especially because my background is mental health nursing.

“I do aesthetics but I didn’t just want to leave all the mental health stuff behind.

“When we came into this building, it had ‘#Houseofcalm’ on the wall and with the way that things were happening, everything just fitted in together with that.

“People can expect honesty when they come into the salon and nothing but that.

“As well myself being a mental health nurse, we have a nurse prescriber on site and everyone who works in here has the same ethos around helping customer self-confidence.

“Everything can be tailored to the client, so say if someone had additional needs and the salon needs to be quiet, we can cater for that.

“It is the same as if you were to go to an appointment at the NHS for something like a broken arm, you’d get a tailored care plan to what you need and that is exactly what we want to push here.”

The House of Calm offers a range of treatments including hairdressing, nail tech, sports therapy massage, aesthetics, lash tech, spray tans, relaxing massage, facials, brow tech and a training academy.

Despite working in salons in the past, the House of Calm is the first time that Shymaa has created her own business space and she has expressed her delight in what she has created.

She added: “I’m really proud of what we’ve created, especially with all the support that we’ve had - it has been amazing.

“Finally seeing it open and functioning is just a different world and everyone who has been in so far has loved it.

“They’ve commented on the calm vibe that the salon has, which is exactly what we want.

“Having the Mayor officially open the salon is just surreal, I didn’t think that I’d get as emotional by it as I did.”

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Appointments will be available with the various beauticians at the House of Calm from 8.30am until 8pm, seven days a week (some days will vary).

You can find out more about the salon by visiting: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61572595509732.

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