Snip, snip: Salons sharpen scissors
Hairdressers are sharpening their scissors in preparation for a deluge of clients and fixing botched DIY cuts following the lockdown.
Julian Maloney, of Maloney’s Cut and Shave on Victoria St in downtown Auckland, said his team of barbers was looking forward to getting back to work.
He estimated they do 500 or 600 haircuts every week, so a lockdown backlog of 3000 or 4000 shaggy customers was going to be “insane”.
“We’re really looking forward to opening at level 2, it’s not confirmed, but we’re very lucky and grateful to be coming back to a busy industry,” said Maloney.
He had spent the lockdown preparing the barbershop for new social distancing rules. Only five of the barbers, out of the team of 10, can work at any one time. With fewer barbers on hand, they’ll work seven days a week.
The biggest change for a traditional barbershop will be no waiting in a queue, customers will have to book an appointment like a salon.
Maloney urged customers to be patient and not take matters into their own hands.
“I’ve seen some shockers in the supermarket. We’d rather cut a Tom Hanks’ Castaway look, from long to short, than try to fix a homemade Peaky Blinders look,” he said with a laugh, referring to the harsh styles of the popular television show.
Wellington’s Miss Fox salon has received a flood of frantic messages from clients with patchy lockdown dye jobs and those who took cutting bangs into their own hands.
Co-owner Loren Svensek said a lot of blonde women had tried to patch up their regrowth during the lockdown period, turning their hair orange at the roots and “blotchy” white blonde at the tips.
“It’s fun hearing about those stories but obviously it will be a little more difficult going back into it, but we’re excited to get into it. The more colour corrections the better.”
The salon already has triple the amount of bookings compared to usual scheduled for the first week they open and she said it will be even busier than Christmas.
“People haven’t had their hair done for what, six weeks? If not more if they didn’t get in before the lockdown, so you’re compiling eight weeks of clients into the first two weeks.”
On top of regular hygiene protocols, Svensek said they would be opening for longer hours and leaving middle seats empty to separate clients and comply with social distancing rules.
“We’ve got hand sanitiser already set up and will be checking people aren’t coming in when they’re sick.”
The Hair and Beauty Training Organisation chief executive told the Epidemic Response Committee yesterday there was a lack of understanding of the mental health importance of grooming services.
Kay Nelson said a lot of people saw grooming as frivolous but for some it could really help their mental health.
She said it was all about selfesteem and it really did make people feel better about themselves, which was important for their mental health.