A BEAUTY salon is taking over a city centre shop unit where a family-run joke shop was based for over 25 years.

Celebrations in Turl Street was opened in 1992 by Rod and Barbara Denton and then run by their daughter Clare Denton until it closed last year due to a drop in trade.

The premises, owned by Lincoln College, will now be leased by Runaya Beauty salon, currently based in Cornmarket Street.

The beauty service has confirmed that it will be relocating its salon from Clarendon House as soon as building works have been completed in November.

The unit has been empty for almost a year after the popular independent fancy dress and joke shop was forced to close at the end of November.

Runaya Beauty is named after the owner’s daughter.

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Owner and beauty therapist Sheetal Kashid said the motive behind the move was a desire for more space in a larger unit.

Oxford Mail:

Ms Kashid currently performs all the treatments. She said that she soon hopes to expand her staffing if the demand for her new salon grows.

She added: “I needed to expand and move into a bigger place. My current salon has become too small as demand has grown.

I am hoping to start doing manicures and pedicures in addition to my current treatments.”

Current treatments available include hair removal waxing, threading, brow tinting, body massages, eyelash extensions, facials and henna tattoos.

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The salon is listed on Hair and beauty bookings website treatwell.co.uk as ‘Most booked 2018’ by customers and was awarded a ‘Top Rated’ badge in 2017 and 2018. Based off over 1,000 customer reviews on treatwell.co.uk, the salon has an overall rating of 4.9 out of 5.

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‘Maggie’ praised the salon in a review on Treatwell, giving the service five stars for the facial that got rid of her spots in time for graduation.

She said: “I was rather sceptical. An hour later, I start to see the spots going down.

“By the morning, they had pretty much disappeared! I gave four stars for atmosphere because it’s in an office building, but she’s moving! Five stars soon!”