Your first post-lockdown hair-do
The good news? Our salons are getting set to reopen. The bad news? They’re cutting all the little luxuries
NOT THAT I am feverishly, desperately, anxiously counting, but it has been ten weeks since my last cut and colour. That is 70 days, eight hours and about 30 minutes from when kindly professionals last took my locks into their loving care and turned a wayward moptop into a vision of sleek, sculpted, gold-tinted perfection.
I was one of the lucky ones. On the final Saturday before full lockdown, I had one of the last appointments at Daniel Galvin’s flagship central London salon. On that strange, unseasonably hot weekend, businesses were shuttering all over the capital as the country prepared for the unknown. Galvin’s actually closed while I was still there, baking nicely under the dryer, richly congratulating myself on my foresight.
Every day since I have silently thanked Saskia, who did my colour, and Debbie, who cut my hair. ‘Shall I cut quite a lot off?’ Debbie said. ‘You never know. Lockdown could last for months.’
how we tittered at the very thought. But after she gave me the shortest haircut I’ve had for years, I have been grateful for her prescience ever since.
I know. I am lucky! Many friends and colleagues are trapped in a hair hell, looking like heads of frisee lettuce or shaggy mushrooms, with exposed roots, knotweed curls and worse.
how their teeth must gnash as I glide among them, at a socially safe distance, looking like Jennifer aniston’s long lost but perfectly groomed Scottish auntie!
Yes, there are many more serious issues in the world, thank you for pointing that out. however, haIR MaTTERS. It matters a lot, to our mental health and sense of self. That is why millions of us are desperate for hair salons to reopen and make us all gorgeous again. But when?
The guidance has been muddled. however, the hair and Barber Council, which represents 11,000 salons, estimates most of its members would be ready by mid-June.
Louise Galvin, the colour director who helps steer the family-run Galvin salons, wants to get her teams back to work as soon as possible.
They have taken matters into their own hands arranging temperature tests and PPE packs on arrival. There will be screens at reception and surfaces and chairs will be wiped down regularly.
Staff have also been ploughing through ‘hundreds of emails’ to get clients back in the chair as soon as possible.
‘Lots of hair and beauty industry bodies have come up with “suggested” guidelines,’ says Millie Kendall of the British Beauty Council.
‘and we know that salons are making plans that include social distancing, hygiene measures, and PPE to help keep staff and clients as safe as possible.’
Whatever measures our salon of choice adopts, that long-awaited trip to the hairdresser is going to be a very different experience.