“Fall In Love With Taking Care Of Yourself”

The Empire Lashes and Beauty story began back in 2014 when Neunglatai started her Certificate in Beauty Services Level 4 at UCOL in Palmerston North. After completing that she moved into her second year completing the Diploma in Beauty Therapy Level 5.

With these qualifications under her belt she started working at a Lash Specific Beauty Salon based in Palmerston North. This continued to improve her Lash application skills and passion for the industry. She then moved into a Beauty Salon based in the Plaza which provided many different services but not Lash Extensions. This allowed her to start working from home doing Lash Extensions in her spare time. Empire Lashes was born.

In 2017 she was looking to take Empire Lashes to the next level by being her full time work. By pure coincidence one night she was talking to her friend Sam about going into business for herself. Sam was Business oriented and had experience running companies. He offered to start the business with Neunglatai and by the end of 2017 Empire Lashes was officially registered as a company.

2018 started off with Neungaltai working full time from a rented room in her flat. In April they hired their first employee Emma who helped the business to grow. November had the team move into their first Commercial Property and changed the name to Empire Lashes & Beauty.

In 2019 the team grew when Tayah came on board to start learning Lashes and to cover the desk. Neunglatai went on maternity leave in November and Tayah stepped up to work full time providing services.

2020 started off well but at the end of March, the country was forced into a lockdown which caused the store to close. Seven weeks later the store opened again with Neunglatai back and now performing Nail services.

In August we said goodbye to Tayah and Tai moved back to Lash Services. In October we had Zara join us as a full time Nail Artist. In addition to this we made some improvements around the store to keep it feeling fresh and exciting.

At the end of January 2021 Zara left us and we had to rethink our game plan. We decided we wanted to stick to our core strength of Lash Extensions. In May we had Rebecca join the team and start training with us. Unfortunately after a few short months Rebecca was unable to continue working and left. With more complications throughout the year with Covid-19, things were looking rather uncertain.

2022 had Abby joining us in February to begin training. While Abby was training in Lash extensions with us she was also training for Cosmetic Tattooing. Once that training was completed we decided to have Abby become our Brow Expert and focus on Cosmetic Tattooing and Tinting. In August we had Sarah join us and start her training for Lash Extensions. Additionally we also made Emma a Shareholder in the Business to thank her for all of her hard work till this stage. Nearing the end of 2022 Empire Lashes & Beauty was one of the few remaining Lash Salons in Palmerston North and business was booming.

At the end of April 2023 Emma decided it was time to move on after five years of working with us. She left to pursue her goal of becoming a psychologist with the Airforce.