Our Rich History

Our rich history

Elite's origins date back to 1973 when a Dutch beauty therapist named Joyce Blok opened the Beauty Therapy College of New Zealand, the first institution to offer professional beauty therapy training in New Zealand. She then went on to open the Joyce Blok institute. Both of these institutions form part of Elite today.

The Elite brand was started in 1999 with a single campus in Albany. In 2005 to meet demand from students from the Waikato who wanted training to an international standard without having to travel to Auckland, we opened our first campus in Hamilton. This growth culminated in the opening of a completely refurbished campus in Bryce Street in the center of Hamilton in 2007.

Our Elite Wellington campus followed suit at the end of 2008 bringing new professional training opportunities to the Capital.

In October 2009 we opened new premises at 3 Broadway in the heart of Newmarket. We moved this campus in January 2017, to a new inner city campus located on Queen Street. This allows Elite students to work in close conjunction with students from our sister school, Cut Above Academy.

In 2022, we rebranded Tauranga's best-loved beauty therapy and makeup school. Face & Beauty Academy, to become Elite School of Beauty & Spa.