Shrewsbury's celebrity hair salon pair put on the style

As I step into Royston Blythe's Shrewsbury salon I see its namesake laughing with a client as he runs his fingers through her hair."I can't do it," he tells her as she giggles back at him in the mirror. "You've got two different hairstyles going on here. It wouldn't work."

You can't fail to spot Royston. His designer dress sense is as striking as his vivacious personality and infectious laugh.

As a Shrewsbury girl about town, you know when Royston and husband Nick Malenko have arrived in a bar or restaurant.

I'm barely through the door of the St Mary's Street salon before I've got a glass of wine in my hand and I'm seated on a purple and green velvet sofa in the window.

Royston and his client swap kisses on each cheek as he bids her farewell until next week when she's booked in for her restyle.

"We had to compromise," Royston says as he sits down beside me. "Someone's given her two different haircuts and I can't do half a job. We're going to have to start again."

I ask Royston if it's his perfectionism that has led to both his Shrewsbury and Wolverhampton salons being named finalists for this year's British Hairdressing Awards.

"I am a perfectionist," he confesses. "We've always been nominated since 2002 but to have two salons in the final is really exciting. It's the Oscars of the hairdressing world."

He shows me the collection of photographs which sealed their place in the final of the awards at London's Grosvenor Hotel on November 24.

"We are well known for our glamorous hair so for the Wolverhampton collection we wanted to do something totally different," Royston explains, showing me striking black and white images of contrasting looks.

"This is something a bit more edgy and gritty. The result is a mixture of 80s inspired looks with a lot of texture. Then what we've done in Shrewsbury is something quite colourful.

"The standard is so high at this competition that you've got to think outside the box. We wanted to do something that is more forward thinking and something inspirational as well as aspirational."

It's a time to celebrate as it's a year since the couple opened the Shrewsbury salon and 25 years since they opened their first salon in Wolverhampton.

"We both love Shrewsbury, we think it's fabulous," he says. "The people are great, it's a very laid back town. It's got a holiday vibe to it when the sun shines.

"We've met some lovely people in the bars and through the local businesses.

"The night life is brilliant. There's so many fantastic restaurants and bars."

Among their favourite haunts are Drapers Hall, the Golden Cross, Henry Tudor House, Porterhouse, Libertine and House of the Rising Sun.

The well-known pair will be hitting our screens in January with the launch of The Real Housewives of Cheshire on new channel ITVBe.

It features their close friends Dawn Ward, Leanne Brown and Ampika Pickston.

"You'll see us partying and having our say on what's going on. It's really nice to be involved and for people to see life outside the salon," smiles Royston.

The pair are no strangers to the reality TV scene having appeared on Billion Dollar Girl while Nick was Tamara Eccleston's personal hairdresser for three and a half years and on numerous episodes of Katie Price's fly-on-the-wall show when he created her wedding hair.

As we are chatting, the other half of the dynamic duo arrives and joins us before Royston slips off for a botox top up.

Nick, who is equally as warm and chatty, tells me how they got into the world of celebrity.

"It started with a chance meeting on a shoot," he said. "Katie Price came in and her make-up artist was doing make-up for us and when she saw what was going on she asked me to do her hair.

"She liked it so much that she asked me to go to Marbella with her and from then on you just meet people and get asked to do this and that."

But it hasn't always been glitz and glamour for the hardworking hairdressers who grafted day and night to carve out their careers.

"What's really important to us is our salons and clients," said Nick.

"We bought the salon in Wolverhampton in 1989 and refurbished it and we've never looked back.

"When we opened that salon we never turned anyone away. We worked all the hours God sent.

"We didn't have any holidays or days off.

"We had just bought our first house and we opened the salon in Royston's name and I stayed at my job in town so I knew I had enough money to pay the mortgage," said Nick.

"I would go to Royston Blythe for 7.30am, go to work in town for 9am, finish work 4.30pm and start at Royston Blythe again where we worked until 2am

"We still live in the salons. That's why we only have two, so we can split our time between them.

"The thing about opening a lot of salons is they lose personality. What we have created here is a part of us. It's a fun atmosphere and we love to share that with our clients."

I ask if there is much time for play with such a hectic work schedule.

"Our life is quite social," he replies. "There's never a weekend that's not filled up with anything. But that's us.

"They say men do their work on the golf course. Well we do ours on the nightlife scene, networking and meeting people."

And what is it like to work with your partner I ask, are there any fall outs? "Of course we fall out," he laughed.

"But only in the privacy of our own home. We are always in the salon it's the most important thing to us we love working with our clients. And we have always worked with each other. We wouldn't have it any other way."