About Capital Hair & Beauty

Capital Hair & Beauty started out in 1954 as a scissor sharpening company based in Brighton, East Sussex. Since then we have grown into the UK's largest independent supplier to Hairdressers, Beauty Therapists and Nail Technicians. We're known for great customer service, fantastic product range and low prices. We currently have 30 cash & carry stores throughout the UK, please visit our store locator to find your nearest store.

Capital was founded in 1954 by the grandfather of our very own Directors, Hamish and Peter Vans Agnew. He provided a scissor sharpening service in Brighton and made deliveries on his push bike! We’ve come a long way since then, here we take a look back at the companies history…

The company was founded in 1954 in Brighton and was known as D.E.L. Supplies. It provided professional hairdressing and animal grooming supplies, as well as a scissor & clipper sharpening service. It was originally created out of a company called Diamond Edge Ltd which still operates today in Brighton, independently from Capital.

Hamish and Peter’s father, Michael, subsequently provided self-service trade counters in Brighton and Catford which operated until the early eighties.

Hamish and Peter joined the team and our first cash & carry wholesale outlet was created in Hayes, Middlesex;moving away from relying on reps and easing cash flow problems from delayed payments. The company became known as Capital (Hair & Beauty), with a new logo to match, a reflection of the company’s expansion into London. We also started serving customers on Sunday – the first to do so in the trade. Stores then opened in Hove, Kingston, Dagenham, Croydon, Bournemouth and Aldershot.

Peter and Hamish took over as Directors of the company. Capital saw more outlets added in Gillingham, Portsmouth, Brierley Hill, Bristol, Walsall, Harrow, Southampton and Hoddesdon, as well as a new Head Office in Brighton. In 1999 a direct sales team was established. Our logo also had a bit of a makeover to become the one you see today!

The start of a new century brought a new distribution warehouse in Dagenham and more store openings including Ipswich in 2001, Norwich in 2002, followed by Eastbourne and Wolverhampton in 2003.

In 2004 Capital’s first e-commerce website was launched and in 2005 we branched out by providing our first training courses to encourage customers to pick up new skills and broaden expertise, plus give them a chance to meet new people in the business and share tips!

Ashford opened in 2006, and in 2008 we branched out into northern England and Scotland with openings in East Kilbride, Aberdeen, Carlisle, Glasgow (Hillington) and Edinburgh. Glasgow (Central) opened in the first half of 2009 and in response to customer demand, Aberdeen relocated to a larger & more convenient unit, as did our distribution centre and website operations during the summer. Crawley opened at the end of the year.

2010 saw our first store open in Northern Ireland (Derry), then very soon after, our first store in the Republic of Ireland (Dublin), bringing the grand total to-date to 30 stores!

2010 also saw the launch of our all-new website that you're viewing today! This was the first completely new website since 2004 (although it went through a couple of facelift's in that time). We don't stand still though, we're constantly growing and developing our online services to improve the service we offer our customers.