Ten Hairdressers, Tattoo Parlours and Spas to Visit in the Inner West for Your Next Pamper Session
Glam up and bliss out at these relaxation palaces.
Ten Hairdressers, Tattoo Parlours and Spas to Visit in the Inner West for Your Next Pamper Session
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Glam up and bliss out at these relaxation palaces.
It's time to dedicate a little time to you. While good food and healthy living can help restore body and soul, sometimes you need to bring in the pamper pros to give you an extra boost.
Whether you're after a soothing spa day, a hair and nail makeover or fresh ink, we've found experts that can help you achieve that 'best self' feeling. All these spots are easily accessible in the inner west, so you can spend a day flitting from one reviving treatment to the next.
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The team at this light-filled King Street spot promises gleaming locks and vibrant skin, and the treatment list could fill a short novel. In the hair department it offers standard cuts and colours, keratin smoothing treatments, permanent straightening and full-service styling.
It can turn unruly eyebrows into shaped and tinted sculptures and offers lash love in the form of lifts (kind of like eyelash perming) and tints or ultra-lush falsies. There are facials to get you glowing, whether you’re after a cleansing, hydrating or exfoliating effect, and microdermabrasion to help tackle scaring or skin discolouration. There are even IV fluids boosted with vitamins ready to be administered by a medical professional to help tackle stress and dehydration from the inside out.
Image: Arvin Prem Kumar
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Privacy and comfort are at the core of this new Rozelle tattoo parlour. Instead of awkwardly bumbling in off the street for your first inking, each artist at Hand in Hand Tattoo organises consultations and bookings privately so you can get to know them and the space. Once you enter the shop — which sits above a barbershop and massage parlour for a treat yo’self trifecta — you’re met with chill vibes at the retro sunken lounge where you can chat ink styles.
There are specialists across the design spectrum, with artists anything from fine line black ink to illustrative flora and fauna and dreamy geometric work. You’ll need to seek them out through Instagram to find the right fit and figure out pricing and booking times, which are all variable depending on the artist and job.
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This jungle of a warehouse is much more than a simple venue for haircuts and colours. The sprawling space is draped with greenery and dried flowers and filled with antique furniture. It’s an oasis within Newtown’s thrumming streets where you can sink into a well-worn Chesterfield with a glass of wine before your appointment.
The stylists here are dab hands at colour corrections and hair makeovers, promising flawless platinum blonde results and precision detail cuts. They create hair masterpieces into the evenings (until 9pm from Tuesday–Friday and 6pm on Saturday) so everyone can fit a feel-good blow-out into their busy schedule. When the salon chairs aren’t in use, A Loft Story becomes a space for pop-up events like jazz nights and gardening workshops.
Image: Cassandra Hannagan
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This funky Enmore joint offers haircuts to all lengths and styles — whether you want to touch up a pixie do or fully revamp longer locks. The team offers colour consultations before booking you in for a tone change using the Australian-made colour range that’s chock-a-block full of natural extracts and minerals.
You can also get a cutthroat razor wet shave finished with luxe beard oil and moisturiser. It’s open all week (at varied hours) and depending on your appointment time, the crew will set you up with a beverage from nearby Matinee Coffee or craft beer from brewery neighbours like Philter and The Grifter. But most importantly, the resident border collie Brando will be there for pats.
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Beyond the retail shopfront of the Balmain incarnation of Nature’s Energy is a warm world of soaking, steaming and massaging magic. There are treatments to match your rejuvenation requirements, from deep tissue massages to restorative acupuncture and soothing facials.
But it’s the bathhouse that sets this spa apart. Get out of your comfort zone and get pruny, lounging beside bikini-clad strangers while you sweat it out in steam rooms and simmer in spa baths. Stay hydrated as you follow the wall-mounted instructions on when to jump between hot and cold pools, and you’ll be rewarded with an airy feeling of ultimate freshness. You can combine this experience with other treatments, like a Turkish body scrub, or visit for a solo splash ‘n’ sweat starting at just $34 for 30 minutes.
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Plop yourself into one of Mr Wolf’s 1930s-style barber chairs for the ultimate old-school trim. The blue windowpane shopfront has become a Newtown favourite for cuts, fades, beard trims and shaves. Exposed brick walls, unframed mirrors and ebony dressing tables give the place its retro vibe, while a lightshade of faux deer antlers and a forest mural add a wild air that seems appropriate for the before photo of a woodsman’s hair transformation.
It’s first come, first groomed at this walk-in barbershop, but in recent years it has started using the SLIKR app which lets you check waiting times and hold your place in a digital queue rather than line up out front.
Image: Cassandra Hannagan
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Sleek Nails sits on the upper floor of Newtown Central, just a stumble from the station. Beyond the convenient location, this salon offers expertise across the full range of nail art and care.
Whether you’re after acrylic nails, gel creations, a dip powder manicure or a statement shellac design, the team has got you covered. Don’t be afraid to get wild with nail art either — think frescos of the night sky, intricate florals and careful fades of the colour spectrum. For pedicures, Sleek Nails will prime your digitals after a soak and scrub while you’re settled in a sleek massage chair.
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Inside an artfully graffitied Annandale warehouse, you’ll find a dedicated team of colourists that has been bringing vibrant hues to inner west noggins for more than a decade.
With whitewashed walls, a vaulted ceiling and generous overflowing pot plants, the space’s minimalist aesthetic is a calming backdrop for the vibrant hair art that’s created within. Whether you’re after a balayage touch-up or a full head of pastel locks, the team weaves its magic with colours and toners for a striking result. You can organise a cut alongside your colour glow-up, but right now DD and Co isn’t offering haircuts as a standalone service.
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If your long-tortured eyebrows are in need of some loving attention, head to Honeytusk Eyebrow Studio’s flagship shop in Rozelle. Whether you’re sporting a couple of untamed caterpillars or a pair of 90s-style pencil lines, you can figure out your eyebrow future in consultation with these pros.
A standard sculpt can be achieved through tweezing, waxing or threading, with colouring and brow lamination (which involves brushing and setting the brows for a more defined look) also on offer. You can give your lashes some love here, too, with colouring and extensions available as well as a lash lift that shapes and curls your natural eyelashes.
To discover more spots in the inner west and businesses to support, head to the Inner West Council website.
Top image: Tooth and Nail
