The Apprentice (UK)

Beauty Treatments (7x4)

Air date: May 25, 2011

Lord Sugar gathers the candidates under the statue of Aphrodite at the British Museum, and reveals their next task: to set-up beauty treatment businesses in Birmingham. At the briefing, he re-balances the teams and personally appoints the project managers. The British beauty industry is worth 14 billion pounds annually, with the best margins in hands-on treatments, so Lord Sugar demands both teams offer these and sell cosmetic products off the back of them. After a choice of professional treatments have been offered to the teams, followed by a short wrangle over total body spray tan, the teams choose two treatments each and get down to some hands-on training. But one of the boys feels that touchy-feely beauty challenges his masculinity, and could worry his girlfriend. Under the watchful eye of Nick and Karren, the teams take their choices to Birmingham. One team goes for the city centre, while the other chooses an out-of-town mall. From now on it's a race to capture customers and get them into the treatment rooms. Products turn out to be easier to shift than getting the public to strip off, but in a desperate struggle to make money, juggling jobs and slashing prices puts profits at risk. In the boardroom the battle to survive gets ugly, until Lord Sugar calls it to order and declares: "You're Fired!".