‘I started off on minimum wage as a scientist – now my hair extension businesses are turning over £4 million a year’

A mother-of-two who started her career earning minimum wage as a scientist in her 20s now runs two hair extension businesses turning over £4 million after taking inspiration from a calamitous DIY haircut just before her wedding day.

Sarah McKenna, 41, who lives in Dublin, Ireland, graduated with a BSc first class honours degree in biochemistry in 2005 and started a career within the pharmaceutical industry – initially earning minimum wage before her salary rose to around £27,000 per year.

However, a DIY haircut disaster just before her wedding in 2010 led her to try hair extensions – and after discovering the “poor-quality” offerings available, she decided to do her own research.

Still working full-time with pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly, Sarah started to “buy hair from all over the world” and she completed several courses in her spare time, including in hair design.

Then, in 2011, she “took a leap of faith” and left the science world to focus on hair extensions full-time – and thus her first company Vixen and Blush was born in October that year.

Although many called her “bonkers” for leaving an “intellectual job” for the beauty industry, Sarah was determined to improve the hair extension offerings in the UK, making them high-quality yet affordable.

She started out with one chair at her first salon in Wandsworth Road, London, but now has a flagship store in Rathbone Square with 21 staff, along with a second wholesale company called The London Hair Lab.

The businesses have gone from strength to strength, turning over a total of more than £4 million each year, and they have several high-profile clients including Louise Redknapp, Alesha Dixon, and Amelia Dimoldenberg.

Sarah said her “life has changed so much”, as there is “never a boring moment”, and the businesses have allowed her to build a community of amazing women, both clients and her team, who “inspire” her every day.

Speaking about her “transformative” career, she told PA Real Life: “I was definitely a nerdy kid.

“I went to private school and nobody would have said, ‘Oh, go and do hairdressing’, it was assumed you’d go to university.

“But I think, on reflection, I’ve got kids now and I would say to them, ‘Don’t discount working with your hands’.

“It’s such a pleasurable thing to do versus working in a corporation where you’re just one person.

“Having a nice interaction where you use your hands and have something to show for it at the end of the day is incredibly rewarding.”

She added: “To the woman working as a scientist back then, I’d say you can find science outside a lab or a clinical setting. Hair is science!

“Go with your gut and put your mind to what interests you, not what is seen as intellectual.”

Sarah, who lives in Ireland with her husband Rory, 41, a pharmacist, and her two children – Reggie, six, and Sid, three – and is expecting her third child in five weeks, said she has always been “nerdy” and academic.

Due to having a “maths and science” brain, she decided to study biochemistry at University College Dublin, specialising in cell microbiology, and she graduated with a first class honours degree in 2005.

She then moved to the UK and started working at Eli Lilly, predominantly in sales and marketing, and said she even sold the “first ever” GLP-1 agonist diabetes drug – now known as Ozempic – to doctors in the UK.

Being analytical, Sarah said she “loved the level of detail” and the “specialist knowledge” that came with the job – but her outlook and career direction changed dramatically in 2010.

“While I was working for that pharmaceutical company, I ended up cutting my hair really badly myself,” she explained.

“I was getting married, and I got hair extensions where I was living, and they were really poor quality.

“I was amazed at the effect of them, but I felt like the tools and everything that was available were really unsophisticated, so I started to look into it myself while working a full-time job.”

Sarah, who was earning around £27,000 at the time, then enrolled in various courses – including in hair design and extensions – outside of her working hours, and she purchased hair from suppliers across the globe.

She later set up her own mobile hair extensions business, where she would travel to people’s homes – and in 2011, she decided to quit her job and focus on her new “solo venture” full-time.

“My parents and friends said, ‘What the hell are you doing?'” Sarah said.

“People thought I was bonkers and were very much taken aback.

“Moving from an intellectual job into the hair and beauty field was a shock to people.”

Sarah said she could get high-quality hair extensions in a salon, but with a £2,000 price tag at the time, this cost was “prohibitive” for her – even as a “highly educated professional woman”.

With a passion for making hair extensions “high-quality and affordable for a regular professional woman”, Sarah set about sourcing products from suppliers directly.

“I was passionate about servicing the middle of the market,” she said.

Sarah then launched her first Vixen and Blush salon in Wandsworth Road, London, in October 2011, but she said she had a “dreadful” first six months.

She opened the 300 square foot premises on her own, which only had one chair for clients, and the rent cost £6,000 annually.

With a “strong fear of failure”, she found this anxiety-inducing – but she said it was also a “driving force” to keep going.

“I had no money, absolutely no money, I didn’t have any funding or backing or anything – but what I did have was really good hair,” she said.

“The only reason I grew from that small space is I was able to offer that quality at a price people could afford.”

Over time, with “pure grit” and determination, the business “snowballed” and gained popularity, and after one year, Sarah hired her first employee Danielle Pink, who is now the director of Vixen and Blush.

She said there was 100% growth in the business every year and she later relocated and opened salons in Shoreditch and the West End.

Sarah was able to remove herself from the business in 2017, and now there is one flagship Vixen and Blush salon in Rathbone Square, London, with 21 staff.

She then launched The London Hair Lab as a wholesale company in July 2018, which offers salon professional hair extensions in 55 multi-tonal blended shades available in five methods and three lengths.

Speaking about why she believes her businesses have been so successful, she said: “We pass on a wholesale cost of hair to the client that is high-quality but priced very well.

“We have a huge inventory – I didn’t pay myself for four years just to create that level of accessibility to hair – so we have 450 variables of hair and we can service someone instantly.”

Explaining why she loves working in the beauty industry, she added: “Day to day you feel accomplished, which is just making people happy or seeing a result before and after.

“That was absent from my corporate job – there is no before and after in a day, it’s all rolling projects and you’re just one person.

“You know you’re making a difference to people and that feels really special.”

For more information about Vixen and Blush and The London Hair Lab, visit: vixenandblush.com or thelondonhairlab.com