A city centre hair salon that began life with just two second-hand hairdryers is about to celebrate its 48th year as one of the largest in the country.
Rob Webb started Voodou Liverpool as a one-man band in Walton Breck Road, near to where he was born, with limited kit and money borrowed from his uncle in 1976.
Now the popular Bold Street business has more than 40 staff at its four floor supersalon, which welcomes thousands of clients a week for cuts, colours, perms and more.
In the past 12 months alone, they’ve spent a staggering 50,000 hours colouring hair, shampooed heads more than 26,500 times, blow dried and curled 100,000 inches of hair and used 7,840 perm rods to make Liverpool locks extra curly.
Rob said: “It’s been such a ride over the last four decades. When I think back to day one, the rent in our little shop back in Anfield was only £26 per week, and our initial setup included two second-hand hairdryers, two sinks, and four chairs – that was it. As our business began to expand, I decided to take it a step further by opening another shop on Priory Road, just three-quarters of a mile away. This marked the beginning of our growth in that area, eventually seeing us operating a total of seven shops.
“The salons were originally known as Robert Michael, which are my Christian names, which was what all the hairdressers were tending to do at the time. It was quite a trend back then set by industry icons like Paul Mitchell and Vidal Sassoon during the 1970s and 1980s.”
As the business continued to grow at pace, Rob decided that it wasn’t his name above the door that excited him – but more about the team that he had.
He said: “I wanted a name that was a bit different, so we changed it to Exit and then Voodou and that was the start of it really.”
In 1995, Rob opened the home of Voodou on Bold Street, which boasts three floors of hair fabulousness and a fourth floor for management offices, making it one of the largest salons in the country.
Since then, they have become renowned as the city’s colour specialists, operating seven days a week, offering everything from luxurious treatments to trendy cuts. Their award-winning experts bring hair dreams to life, just one snip at a time.
“We’re really proud of what we have created here”, added Rob, “We been through recessions, pandemics, the lot – and we’re still here to tell the tale.”
As well as the tougher of times, the team are known for their fun side. During their history, they’ve written to the Queen to make Global Scouse Day a national holiday, took part in a record-breaking zombie walk down Bold Street for Halloween and created a wedding dress made completely out of 250 metres of hair, which made the headlines as far as the US.
Rob said: “Whatever we do, we try and do it for everyone. We’re all-inclusive, for all ages and genders. Whether that’s the team or our clients.
“We have an important job to do, whether it’s through employing and training the hundreds of young talented Liverpool hairdressers who come through our doors, to the clients that need to feel special and rely on us.
“Every strand is a story waiting to be told and every visit to Voodou truly is a celebration of fabulousness.”
