Salon boss tells of tough new regime
A Bath beauty salon boss has said that reopening has been “bitter sweet” in the face of numerous challenges.
Claire Lawton who runs Beauty @ No. 32 on Monmouth Street has said that it has been a “struggle” but that they have been inundated with clients wishing to have treatments.
The beauty salon, which has been on Monmouth Street for 22 years, reopened on July 13 after months of closure due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Mrs Lawton explained she had actually gone on a coastal break down to Devon when the announcement that beauty salons could reopen was made on the radio.
She said: “I didn’t even park up. I just turned around and spent all weekend on the phone to clients.”
Mrs Lawton went on to say that she thought it was wrong that they hadn’t been allowed to open on July 4 with pubs and other non-essential businesses as her business has a very high level of cleanliness.
Yet reopening has not been without its challenges.
Mrs Lawton described the feeling as “bitter-sweet” as they still cannot do all of their treatments.
She said 70 per cent of her business would usually come from facials which are not allowed under current guidance.
Instead Mrs Lawton said:
“We’ve seen a stampede in pedicures but not being able to do facials is a challenge.”
She said only two out of four staff members were back off furlough including herself and that with the current cleaning regime they are implementing each beautician is spending about two and a half hours a day cleaning.
The two working beauticians are cleaning the treatment rooms completely in a half an hour break between clients after they have been temperature checked on arrival.
Mrs Lawton said: “We are literally following people up the stairs wiping them down and have timed our appointments so that there isn’t more than one other person in the waiting room and so that clients don’t have to meet on the stairs.
“We’re happy to do it of course to reassure clients that we are doing everything we can.”
Mrs Lawton has been running the business for 30 years and said that the next few months would be tough due to the reduced number of clients they can see.
“I’m trying to manage client and therapist expectations as we can’t do everything. We are still waiting for the proper guidelines but in the meantime we have spent a lot of money on PPE.
“We have visas, gowns, gloves, hand sanitiser, everything and it gets very hot wearing them.
“But what I have heard, which did cause some bad feelings, is an account of a customer who said they had been receiving beauty treatments from someone else while we were shut.
“Now that wasn’t allowed, and here we shut completely and I haven’t been doing any treatments on anyone - not even my own family members as we have taken the rules very seriously.
“So when you hear another person hasn’t been, that is upsetting.”
A saving grace she said was having an “understanding” landlord and knowing that the demand will still be there.
Yet she said she thought Bath could learn from Salisbury when it put in place a number of measures to draw trade back into the town after the Novichok poisonings.
Mrs Lawton said: “I do think that Bath could take something from Salisbury in how they got people to come back, they had free parking and other measures.
“I’m seeing clients that are happy to come into town for the appointment but then are leaving straight after.
“They aren’t willing to go for that wander and spend the extra cash.”