‘I’m booked up for months and have so many call store turn’
Keris Weir of the Keris Weir Salon in Co Armagh has had to deal with her online booking system and Facebook messenger crashing as people scramble to get an appointment.
The award-winning stylist and Belfast Telegraph Weekend magazine columnist, whose family hairdressing business in Lurgan has been going for 45 years, is now booked up until September and has still hundreds of calls to return.
Keris has a large salon and has been able to create two zones to keep clients separated. She doesn’t expect to have any more than two clients and two members of staff (including her) in the salon at any one time.
It is a massive change from normal times when she would have been working on the hair of three clients at once.
The costs involved in cutting back on client numbers has meant limiting her menu choices to cuts, colours and extensions only and raising prices by 20%.
It was a tough decision which she says was necessary for her salon’s survival: “The new way of working is all about contamination control and volume control,” she explains.
“We have opted to use disposal gowns and disposable towels as well as provide our clients with masks. The salon will look different but we are lucky because we have a large floor space. However, we have had to take away four of our dress-out stations and that has left us with four.
“We have also taken the middle of three sinks out of operation.
“Prices have gone up because of the time we now have to devote to one on one styling and the extra costs of PPE.
“Usually I would be jumping between three clients at any one time and now I will only be able to do one.
“That is going to have a huge impact on the business and some salons already have said they can’t survive. It has been a difficult decision for me to put prices up but if I want to be profitable I have no choice.”
A cut which would have cost £35 before lockdown will now be £45 and Keris’s signature balayage colouring, which started at £85 before the pandemic will now cost £105.
She adds: “I am not doing blow-dries or dry cuts anymore because it just simply isn’t financially feasible and I know that has caused some upset but I had to make a big decision to keep the business going.
“The salon will be very different but I hope people will still enjoy the full salon experience.”