They have been featured on many magazines and TV shows and when they toured across Japan with their hair shows, 18.000 people attended!
The name of the salon is “Acqua” and they have 2 salons located in Aoyama and Omotesando. Those areas are known as trendy upper class shopping spots in Tokyo and those are where top class salons are located.
A hair salon that survived the competition for so many years
As the areas are so popular, they are the most competitive areas for hair salons to survive also.
Out of all the new hair salons in Japan, only half of them survive more than 1 year. Only 15% of them survive for 5 years and when it comes to surviving more than 20 years, there are only 0.3% of them! Acqua has been running the business for almost 30 years!!
That really assures how trustworthy they are and how much they are loved by their customers. It shows in repeat customer rate, as it reached an amazing 80%! Not only the customers keep coming back to them, the new customers mostly come from repeat customers’ referral. The customers’ satisfaction rate shows 4.6 out of 5.

Salon Director Mr. Ito
A hair salon with a real concept & philosophy
- Acqua way of thinking is that the salon is a white canvas on which each hairdresser comes as a unique color. Acqua respects each hairdresser’s style and trains them to leverage it into customer’s satisfaction.
- Also Acqua really cares about its staff, and Acqua hairdressers are happy to work there as the working environment & conditions are great, which is actually not such a common thing in hairdressing industry, and happy employees make a good salon! Indeed Acqua has been part of an experimental project for the past 5 years in collaboration with Tokyo University Health Management Research Unit, in order to improve staff health condition by managing breaks during the day (which again, is not very common in Japanese hairdressing industry), food, drinks and group stretching sessions. Acqua has recently presented in the health management symposium that the result was spectacular and that staff’s sick leaves or resignation rate significantly decreased. Acqua believes that in order to create beautiful styles, you need to manage your own style, therefore health. In order to provide beauty, you need to be beautiful from inside too! A great example for the industry!
The secret of popularity: the staff’s consultation skills
At last but not least, one of the reasons why customers love Acqua so much is their ability to give creative suggestions to customers. Staff in Aqua are trained to come up with at least 5 different hairstyles that would suit the customer. They not only listen to you for the hairstyles that you want, but they try to unveil what you are trying to solve by makeover (like you are trying to hide the round face or want to make a better impression at work etc….).
Acqua indeed is the most well established and trusted hair salon in Japan.
Interested in hair makeover in Acqua? Check our menu here!
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