At the lower end of Hampstead High Street, there’s a corner building – 130 years old – which locals will remember used to be a Lloyds Bank. For the last four years, the Grade II listed premise has been Vakrat Salon – a premium hairdresser and much more.
What to expect at Vakrat
Over two floors, the owner Dror Vakrat has created a one-stop venue for all our beauty and wellness needs. After passing through the hair salon, there’s a nail bar and pedicure corner, six downstairs rooms for facials, skin treatments, aesthetics, massages and osteopathy, and a modern Pilates Reformer studio as well as a space for yoga classes.
The concept of having all these services under one roof works because there is so much interior space. And Dror, a long-time Hampstead local, is intent on providing an awesome destination. High end it is – and with that comes trustworthy experts providing the services.
Arriving at Vakrat one Friday morning
Firstly, I noticed the serenity inside, despite staff busying themselves with usual salon activities – sweeping, taking coats, making clients hot drinks. Beyond the homely reception area, stylists at the various classy styling stations were doing their magic, whilst clients faced elegant modern mirrors.
Many of the Vakrat fourteen stylists have been trained by Vidal Sassoon. Dror himself spent ten years as part of Sassoon’s International Education team, traveling extensively to teach. Clearly, his time in Japan has influenced the minimalist clean interior design at Vakrat.
Transforming a bank into a hair salon and well-being hub
Every day during lockdowns, on their way to get permitted exercise on the Heath, Dror and his daughter would walk past 40 Rosslyn Hill which by 2020 had been closed for about four years. Then one day Dror decided to call the phone number on the board outside. With the building still under the bank’s lease, he was instructed to go to Lloyds in Camden, where he was given a key and sent on his own to look around.
“I couldn’t believe that they just gave me the key,” Dror told me as we relaxed on a huge sofa. “When I got inside, I saw that, even after all that time closed, the bank’s counters, desks and chairs were still in place.”
It took about a year for Dror to convert the bank into this luxury hair salon with beauty and health treatment services too. As the building is Grade II star listed, he not only had to maintain the architectural structure but also have consent for all interior alterations. Fortunately, Dror could see how to synch a modern design with the reddish-brown mahogany walls so characteristic of Victorian bank interiors. And what fun to enter the downstairs treatment rooms with their super massage tables, by passing through the bank’s vault doors!
Japanese Head Spa
A desire to experience a Japanese Head Spa brought me to Vakrat. And now having had this veritable treat at Vakrat, I understand that it matters how you’re positioned. I lay horizontal in a fully reclinable high-tech chair, with fabric so buttery – that it was as if the chair itself was asking me to surrender, to let go. (Later I learnt that the three fully reclinable chairs at the washing hair station are as valuable as three new medium sized cars!)
After an initial hair wash, the lovely Zivile stimulated my scalp with a gentle hand scrub to open pores. Then the fountain is turned on, and warming water massages the hair. As drops neatly and continuously fell on my hair and especially my hair line, my mind’s troubles blotted away. Meanwhile, a feeling of being safe was enhanced by a misty steam engulfing the lower part of my face and neck area.
Next came the slow and careful application of a gorgeous oil, chosen to suit my hair texture and then my head was placed in a steam cap to rejuvenate my head. After a final rinse, I was taken to a styling station – no cut on this occasion – but a blow dry which I loved enough to ask Zivile to take a photo of my shiny hair against a palimpsest wall by the nail bar.
Finally I returned to the reception sofa to talk with Dror, which was fortuitous, because I didn’t want to leave. I could have sat for ages staring out of the huge arched windows, mesmerised by sunlit leaves on magnificent Hampstead trees.
www.vakrat.co.uk
Vakrat is at 40 Rosslyn Hill, Hampstead, NW3.
Cover Photo: Japanese Head Spa
