Olga Lialina of FAM London: A New Generation of Beauty, Rooted in Heritage

In a city saturated with beauty concepts, FAM London offers something quietly rare: a sanctuary where modern luxury meets generational vision. Tucked in the heart of Westminster, the salon has quickly earned a devoted clientele thanks to its full-circle approach to beauty—from precision manicures and hair artistry to advanced facials and tailored treatments. At the helm is Olga Lialina, the salon’s General Manager, who runs the business alongside her mother and draws inspiration from a legacy that spans continents and generations. Olga is carving her own path with a calm confidence, clear strategy, and deep respect for craft. As the salon approaches its two-year anniversary this autumn, we sat down with her to talk about legacy, growth, and what’s next for FAM London.

FAM London is quickly becoming one of Central London’s most talked-about beauty destinations. What’s the story behind the salon—and what inspired your mother, and now you, to take the leap into the beauty world together?

My mother was always fond of beauty. She was always, and still is, one of the most beauty-invested people, who always tests the newest machines, treatments, and products on herself. With her knowledge and aspiration for beauty, she wanted to create her own space, not just for someone who uses beauty daily, but for someone who loves beauty with all her heart. Because she felt so homy, familiar and fabulous through it, the name Fam Beauty was born. It stood for family, familiarity, fabulousness, and that little spark of magic you feel when someone just gets you. That is what we are rooting for at Fam Beauty: quality, elegance, familiarity and inclusion for everyone. I was by my mom’s side from the beginning, first as a social media manager and then grew into a General Manager. My aspiration was to love beauty the way my mom does, to understand it the way my mom does and to make it feel like it does for my mom.

You’re not just running a salon, you’re curating an entire experience, from nails to advanced facials. How do you balance high standards across so many services, and what’s the experience you want every client to walk away with?

Honestly, I couldn’t have done it without being consistently inspired by the service, testing and failing several times, and, obviously, without the strong team of professionals. With these things in place, I am confident that we can continually learn, grow, and inspire others. When a person comes into the salon, we want every client to forget about their outside worries and problems and just enjoy the process of being surrounded by fabulousness and beauty. As a team, we always want our clients to walk away with a light, relaxed, and inspired feeling of being themselves, enjoying themselves, and falling in love with themselves again. Even the simple express treatment can do this to you, trust me!

The salon turns two this September, congratulations! What have been the biggest lessons you’ve learned in these first two years of business, and what does growth look like from here?

That's a tricky question, because I've learned so much that I think it will take several hours to read. The most important lesson I've learned is to be patient with the team, colleagues, clients and with myself. It was hard for me to see, understand and accept that not everyone moves at the same speed as I do. I am a pretty energetic person, just like my mom, and we always want everything to be done and resolved very quickly. However, the world doesn't work this way; therefore, you need patience, sometimes a great deal of it.

Growth is always about expansion. The team, clientele, space, and you have to expand. In the future, we would like to have multiple locations, not just one, and possibly not just in London.

What’s been the steepest learning curve for you in running the business day-to-day—and what’s come more naturally than you expected?

Steepest learning point for me to be wrong. I can't know everything, and I don't have a textbook on how to manage a beauty salon at full capacity. Hence, I needed to learn and accept my mistakes, fix them and learn from them. While you are at the university, you may have the wrong or correct answer, but in reality, you don't. You do have a lot of opportunities, and maybe some of them just aren't for you. Perhaps you sometimes feel like you're making a mistake, but these mistakes reveal gaps in your knowledge or provide new opportunities. What is excellent in that is that I am a quick learner, and most of the errors were fixed within seconds. It also made me learn that it is not the end of the world if you are wrong.

Many salons focus on one niche, but FAM offers everything from nails and brows to advanced facials and hair. What was the vision behind this full-circle approach—and how do you maintain excellence across all departments?

We wanted Fam Beauty to be a closed-circle salon, where you can relax for hours. It is very convenient to have everything in one place, especially when you become familiar with the people there.

Across all departments, you must adopt a different perspective on excellence. In each department, you must pay great attention to the sterilisation of everything you use, while maintaining a high standard of service through effective communication with our clients. It makes a huge change to be honest.

However, the constant remains honesty, along with the proposal of the best approach to the client’s health and well-being.

Looking ahead to the new season, are there any treatments, trends, or in-salon experiences you're excited to highlight for autumn?

Well, for this you will have to keep an eye on Fam Beauty, as we are like a little kid: we are developing, learning and implementing everything very quickly