Tauranga salon heading to Australia as finalist in 2018 Hair Expo awards

Ado Salon is a finalist for best salon design in the 2018 Hair Expo Awards in Melbourne. Pictured from left are Penny Davies, Shelley Pullar, Ray Pullar and Jason Davies. Photo/ Andrew Warner.

A Tauranga salon is the only New Zealand salon to make the cut as a finalist for best salon design in the 2018 Hair Expo Awards in Melbourne.

Ado Salon is hoping to take home the award on the night for their new fit-out, which hairdresser Penny Davies describes as industrial eco-chic.

"It's all done on the interior of the salon, our layout and the whole design of what we've done," Davies said.

She said the fit-out was done by herself, her husband Jason Davies and Ray and Shelley Pullar.

"A big focus was keeping it green and eco-friendly, so we've got this moss that we imported from Scandinavia, we wanted to bring the outdoors in, it also acts as a fire retardant," Davies said.

"It's a living wall, and it's also a purifier for the air, it takes all the chemicals out of the air - we've got a few walls done in that."

Ado is the only New Zealand salon in the running for best salon design, alongside nine Australian salons.

"Australia has huge budgets where we have done all the interior design ourselves, and we've actually done a lot of the work ourselves, so they get to find that out too," Davies said.

"We're working on the second part of our entry right now which is the validation of everything we've done in here like who our designers were, what we used, are we eco-friendly, it's quite in-depth - they really validate everything we've done here."

And the cost?

'We did the $200,000 fit out for a very small amount... because we sourced it all ourselves," Davies said.

Preliminary feedback from Ado's client base has been overwhelmingly positive, Davies said.

"The clients love it; there is more space for them, it's given them more comfort, the high ceilings have given the salon an air of space with the limited floor space, it's very lofty and beautiful."