My in-home studio salon has been officially closed since March 23rd, due to the coronavirus. I live in the state of Tennessee, and we were legally able to reopen on May 6th. Upon reopening stylists have been given new rules and regulations to follow. The new rules are put in place to insure the safety of customers and stylists alike.
I haven’t felt comfortable about any of this. I’ll tell you why. I have a salon studio inside my own home. So essentially, I am inviting Covid19 directly into my home. It makes it impossible to follow the sanitation suggestions that I have seen being giving to frontline and essential workers. I have seen where healthcare workers are encouraged to keep a separate pair of shoes inside a plastic container with a lid inside their car; so that they can change out of their work shoes once inside their vehicles. They are also supposed to Lysol both pair of shoes after each use. This is to help prevent them from bringing the virus into their homes on the bottoms of their shoes. Another thing I have seen for essential workers is to immediately take off their work clothes and put them directly into the washing machine, and wash them immediately to reduce the risk of bringing the virus into their homes via their clothes. When working from a room inside my home, I can’t do these things. I can remove and wash my shoes and clothes as soon as my client leaves; but it’s very possible that they unknowingly walked the virus right into my home. So this makes it to where I have to do these clothing and shoe cleaning after my work day is done, but I also have to clean the door and floors and every single thing that I or a client may have touched while inside my studio; every single day, after every single client.
I work from home with two small children; most often my husband isn’t home because he’s at work. So I’m having to make accommodations for what to do with my kids, that I don’t normally have to do. If my husband isn’t able to make it home from work in time, I am having to find a babysitter; that I normally don’t have to. Because only one person is allowed in the salon at a time. And the only time a minor is allowed in the salon is if they are getting a service themselves, and they must only be accompanied by a single adult. This means that my children can’t come in the salon at all, for any reason. This has been difficult. They don’t understand why they all of a sudden can’t come into the salon like they normally would. They love my clients, and my clients love my children. It has been hard to tell my children that they can’t even come in to say “hello” to their friends that they’ve missed.
Another thing that is new for coronavirus and working in the salon has been new very strict sanitation that has been added to a very sanitation focused career. We are supposed to sanitize the door handle/knob, both inside and out when a new client comes in, and when they leave. We also have to wash and dry towels immediately after each client, to kill the virus. We are obviously wearing masks. And if you didn’t know I wear glasses. Wearing a mask and glasses is a pain in the ass. I have no idea how people do this all day everyday on the front lines. Another thing about masks is, they make it very difficult to cut men’s hair around the ears. They also get wet when shampooing color out of the hair. I can’t imagine sitting there with a wet mask for the rest of my service is a decent experience. We cannot reuse capes. Each cape is single use only, normally you wash them at the end of the week unless you get color or lightener, or another chemical on them. This limits the amount of clients I can take in a single day in a way that I did not think about until I realized how quickly I was running through capes. We also have to clean any chair the client may have sat in or touched while in the salon. Normally, we chemically clean the chairs at the end of the day; unless we, or the client, gets color on the chair during a service. This also adds on to the time that we have to put in between our clients. Adding this extra time in between clients either adds much, much more time to our work days, or limits the amount of clients we are able to accommodate in a single day.
Along with all the new rules, the new stress, and the new fear, that now come with opening my home up to the public, I have to say I have been showered with so, so, so much love and appreciation. Every single one of my clients have been so understanding. They have all willingly followed all the new weird rules. And many of them have brought me, my kids, and my dogs gifts, because they missed us! (All my clients love kids and animals tremendously!) I have been moved to tears almost every single day, because my clients have gone out of their way to make sure that I know how much they appreciate me opening back up. They have all made sure to let me know they have missed me as much as I missed them. And ya’ll, I have missed them!
Opening up has been scary but rewarding! I can honestly say that I am so thankful for my clients. They are the best people on the planet! If you haven’t been able to get back into the salon to see your stylist, either because they aren’t allowed to open because of executive orders, or because they are so booked out that you can’t get you in just yet, please be patient. Please wait for your stylist. Please return to your stylist, he or she is relying on you. If stylists aren’t working, they aren’t making money. We all need a job to come back to! So please come back! Your stylist loves you! Your stylist misses you!
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