A beauty salon has been forced to cancel appointments and reschedule events after an audacious burglary last weekend which saw more than £10,000 worth of stock stolen.

The owners of Elegance in Main Road, Gidea Park, were greeted with a sight of destruction when they arrived into work on Monday morning.

“There were boxes everywhere as the stockroom had been completely ransacked,” explained James Hall.

“Then all our shelves were empty in the shop front. They had taken everything.”

James and his business partner, Louise Wotton, believe the burglary happened around 3am as the neighbours who live above the shop think they heard something at that time.

Police were called when the butchers next door came in for the early shift and saw the salon’s door had been forced open.

James said: “We had to cancel all our appointments on the day but thankfully we are closed on Tuesdays anyway so it gave us a bit of time to work out what was missing.”

All of the beauty products they stocked were taken including two prestigious salon-only skincare brands, Elemis and Environ, exclusive makeup brand, Jane Iredale, and a number of designer perfumes such as Marc Jacobs and Calvin Klein.

“You can only stock the creams in the salon after a consultation because they have pharmaceutical grade ingredients so you can’t get them in the shops,” explained Louise.

“We are hoping people will keep their eyes out for the products turning up on websites like Gumtree or eBay or at car boot sales because then we can trace the batch numbers and maybe find out who did this.”

James and Louise have posted an appeal on their Facebook page which has garnered them huge support and been shared over a hundred times.

“We are hoping through social media we can make life a little bit more difficult for the culprits and hopefully warn other salons to be on their guard,” said James.