THIEVES broke into a beauty salon and stole thousands of pounds worth of products.

Sharon Hook, 52, has been running Eclipse Health and Beauty in Eastwood for 13 years without any problems.

But, yesterday morning, while Sharon was on her way into work, she received a call from a neighbouring business to say the salon had been broken into.

Sharon was then told by neighbours that they heard some noise during the early hours which sounded like wood breaking.

She said: “You just don’t absorb it when you first get told something like that, you just hear the information.

“I thought to myself, ‘what have they stolen?’ ‘can we trade today?’ ‘how many clients are we going to have to let down today?

“When I arrived, the door was damaged where it had been forced open with what looks like a crowbar.

“Unfortunately I don’t have any CCTV but some of the neighbouring shops do. You could see everything had been sprawled across the floor.

“Strangely, they didn’t take the laptop or iPad which we use for our electronic booking system. I suspect they probably got interrupted.

“You can see they started on one side of salon, and worked their way around and just swiped what they could.”

A Bare Minerals make-up stand had been cleared which costs the salon about £3,000.

Sharon believes the total value of what was stolen is about £6,000, including nail varnishes, and other make up and beauty products.

Sharon added: “Most of what they took was used products which really isn’t worth anything to them. They also took the till which just had around £44 worth of petty cash in.

“I don’t know if it was drug users that are responsible as I can’t see what they would really get from taking used products.

“They even took a CD out of the CD player, but left the CD player here.

“I was told they may take all the products to salons in other areas and try to sell them off for cheap.

“Everyone has been so lovely and we have had lots of messages of support.

“We managed to move all our clients around and carry on trading as normal.”

A spokesman for Essex Police, said: “We received reports on Tuesday, May 28, about a burglary in Eclipse Health and Beauty, in Rayleigh Road, Eastwood.

“We received information that suspects broken into the address, carried out a search and left with cash and beauty products.

“Anyone with information is asked to call Southend police station on 101 quoting crime reference 42/83298/19 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.”