Swiss Cosmetic Chain Venus Beauty Faces Complaints After Branch Closures

The Swiss cosmetic chain Venus Beauty has closed eight of its 13 locations across German-speaking Switzerland, triggering widespread complaints from customers who paid upfront for laser hair removal packages. Studios in cities including Bern, Lucerne, St. Gallen, Aarau, and Basel have ceased operations, leaving affected clients with unused multi-session passes. According to customer reviews on the platform Trustpilot, where the company holds a rating of 1.6 out of 5 stars, requests for monetary refunds were repeatedly rejected or ignored.

The company attracts clients with a low-price model, offering single full-body sessions for approximately 190 Swiss francs or ten-session subscriptions for 1,800 francs, which is significantly below standard market rates. Following branch closures, Venus Beauty directed customers to travel to remaining locations in cities such as Zurich or Baden instead of reimbursing their open balances. In several instances, clients were offered store vouchers rather than cash payments.

Legal expert Gabriela Baumgartner from the consumer programme Espresso stated that transferring customers to a different city is legally unreasonable. According to Baumgartner, branch closures under these conditions grant clients an extraordinary right of cancellation, requiring the company to pay out remaining subscription balances directly rather than issuing credit vouchers. In one case in Bern, a customer who purchased a 1,000-franc package before the local branch shut down received a legal opposition from Venus Beauty after her legal insurance instituted debt enforcement proceedings.

Medical standards for laser hair removal generally require between four and ten sessions to achieve an 80 to 95 percent reduction in hair growth, according to Lucerne dermatologist Daniel Mahler. Mahler noted that lifetime hair removal cannot be guaranteed and warned against continuing treatments indefinitely if no further progress is visible. Improper application of laser energy carries risks of skin redness, burning, and permanent pigmentation changes, while protective protocols require staff to cover moles, tattoos, and blood vessels.

Venus Beauty rejected the allegations, stating that clients receive comprehensive written consultations prior to treatment. Regarding branch closures, the company stated that it acts leniently and provides refunds if an alternative location is more than 30 minutes away by car. Following direct intervention by consumer journalists, both the Bernese customer and a Zurich client who underwent 34 sessions over four years received full refunds for their open balances.

Written by Freya Stensrud freya.stensrud@alpineweekly.com