AT midnight in Aberdeen city centre a dozen glamorous ladies troop out of a small shop in Skene Street, laughing as they wave goodbye to their two young male hosts.

Two young Shetlanders, Andrew Gray and Ed Freshwater, begin to clear up the debris - a pile of hair clippings and wine glasses with lipstick marks.

The ladies, courtesy of their oil company employer, had taken over Gray’s trendy new hair salon Biyoni, for a Saturday night party pamper session.

“The oil company even managed to write off the expense as a team- building exercise,” says Freshwater, Biyoni’s creative services director.

Freshwater, whose background is in marketing and design, has never wielded a pair of hair scissors in his life, and was hired by salon owner Gray to help devise an innovative marketing campaign to make the salon stand out from the crowd.

They used an effective blend of internet marketing and cross promotions with other businesses from a local sweet shop to a florist; struck discount deals with the city’s biggest employers; and sent cool recruits around the hottest bars wearing Biyoni T-shirts.

Less than a year after opening, the salon is thriving, Gray was named Shell Livewire Entrepreneur for the northeast and Biyoni will soon become Scotland’s first salon to offer online booking.

Gray is among a new generation of entrepreneurs determined to make their mark in Scotland’s hair and beauty sector which has grown by 30% over the past five years and is now worth (pounds) 415 million out of a total UK value of (pounds) 1.5 billion.

It is hard to succeed in a sector where competition is as sharp as the scissors - yet each year more cash is poured into salons as Scots become more image conscious.

Scotland already has some 4000 hair and beauty salons. About one- quarter of new businesses being set up by young Scots are in the beauty industry and beauty therapy is now the fifth most popular training course at HND level.

The market is booming as men cotton on to a secret women knew long ago - grooming is about more than vanity. It is also about being taken seriously, feeling good and grabbing precious me-time.

Jenny Blackburn, a former medical sales rep, opened The Men’s Room two years ago, Scotland’s first dedicated men-only beauty salon, offering a menu which includes wet shaves, chest waxes, eyelash tinting and cold beers. The only thing not available is “back, crack and sack”.