Meet Victoria Arpels
She trained at a Norwich college while working in a spa, qualified as a teacher at 24, and started Next Step Beauty in 2008. More than 100,000 students have taken one of her courses since.
She built it for the person she kept meeting in college corridors: someone with real ability and no realistic way of getting to a classroom on a weekday afternoon. Shift patterns, children, distance, money.
She still teaches on it herself. The hands demonstrating the techniques in the nail course videos are hers, and she works with the tutor team on feedback for assessed work.
This is the whole story, including the part that nearly stopped it.
- BA (Hons) Inclusive Practice and Education
- Certificate in Education Award
- Level 3 Teacher Assessor Award
- NVQ Levels 2 and 3 Beauty Therapy
Follow Victoria
Victoria demonstrates the techniques in the nail course videos and works with the tutor team on case-study feedback. You can follow her on Instagram as @victoria_arpels.
Where She Started
Victoria did not arrive in beauty by a shortcut. She left school and took her NVQ Level 2 and Level 3 in Beauty Therapy at City College Norwich, working as a therapist in a busy spa at the same time, and paying for intensive private courses alongside the college work to fill in what the syllabus did not cover.
At 19 she started a four-year teacher training programme. She came out of it with a Certificate in Education Award, a Level 3 Teacher Assessor Award and a BA (Hons) in Inclusive Practice and Education, and graduated at 24 in Norwich Cathedral. She was already lecturing part-time in further education colleges before she had finished studying.
Worth saying plainly, because it is the thing most people worry about: every beauty professional starts from the same place, which is not knowing how to do it yet. Practice is what closes that gap, and it closed it for her the same way it will for you.
What She Built
Lecturing in colleges and working with brands including Salon Systems and Le Chat, Victoria kept meeting the same person: someone with the ability and the appetite to train, who could not get to a college on a Tuesday afternoon. Shift patterns, children, distance, money. The talent was there. The access was not.
She started Next Step Beauty in Norfolk in 2008 to deal with that. Within two years it had training locations across the UK. Then she took it online, so the course came to the student rather than the other way round — which is why you can study it at eleven at night once the house is quiet.
- 2008Teaching since
- 100,000+Students
- 65Countries and territories
- 1,000,000Courses sold
What She Came Through
She had her first child at 27, while running the business.
At 29, shortly after her second was born, she was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. What followed was eighteen months of chemotherapy and radiotherapy. She reached remission. Six months later the cancer came back, and the treatment started again.
She is cancer-free now. The business was still standing at the end of it, but her own career had to be rebuilt around a body that had been through all of that, which took considerably longer than anyone tells you it will.
She does not bring this up often, and she does not offer it as an inspirational story. She mentions it because a fair number of the people who enrol on her courses are at a point where something has knocked their life sideways — a diagnosis, a redundancy, a separation, a new baby — and they are quietly wondering whether it is too late to start something. That is a reasonable question to ask. Her answer is that she asked it too.
Looking back on my journey, I see resilience, passion, and a commitment to helping others. From launching my business to overcoming personal challenges, every step has shaped who I am today. Building a community, supporting professionals, and transforming skin health have been my greatest achievements. Through it all, my mission remains the same — to empower others with knowledge, confidence, and lasting results.
Victoria Arpels
Where You Will Find Her In Your Course
Victoria is not a name on the homepage with nothing to do with the teaching.
In the training itself
- She demonstrates the techniques in the nail course videos. The hands you are watching are hers.
- She works with the tutor team on feedback for assessed work.
- She is in the private student groups, where students post their practice and ask the questions they would rather not ask in public.
- Business training comes with every course, and it comes from someone who has built several.
What else she has built
Alongside Next Step Beauty she runs Beauty Tribe, a network of resellers and international partners, and MHD Pro, a hairdressing education business she acquired in 2021. She also has a skincare clinic and her own product range, launched the same year.
She writes for industry press including Vitality Magazine, and started the Beauty Industry Support Group in 2020, which now runs to thousands of members. Closer to home, she writes for this blog too — read her articles.
Articles By Victoria
Victoria writes the study guides on our blog, drawing on her years in the salon and the classroom. These are her most recent.
- Nail Technician Starter Kit: What Equipment Do You Need?Nail training
- Do You Need a Qualification to Be a Nail Technician in the UK?Nail training
- How Our Beauty Courses Work: Learning, Case Studies and CompletionStudying with us
- How to Set Up a Nail Practice Space at HomeNail training
- Lash Lift or Lash Extensions? Understand the Difference Before You TrainBeauty training
- Starting SPMU Training: 7 Things to Check Before You EnrolSPMU training
You can also read more about Next Step Beauty, how our qualifications, accreditation and insurance work, and what past students have gone on to do in our student success stories.
See more of Victoria's work on Instagram: @victoria_arpels →
Where To Start
If you are not sure which course fits, start with the area rather than the course. Each one sets out what you will learn, how the work is assessed and what you will need to practise on.
