Self-care services have been ruled non-essential during this time of the COVID-19 pandemic. Salons, barber shops, nail salons, and beauty parlors have all been closed due to the ability to spread the virus. Amanda Huseman of A Touch of Class Hair Salon says that the whole situation is bad all the way around for the industry. “Through all of this, because I am [considered] self-employed as a hair stylist, I am out of work. I think many people don’t realize how at risk hair stylists and barbers are with the virus. We’re hands-on people. We touch people all day long. We don’t know always who people are as completely random, walk-ins. It kind of makes it a little more scary during this outbreak. If it were just people that we knew, it would be a little less stressful. Right now, there’s no income and there’s not really anything [the industry] can do because we’re not really considered eligible for unemployment benefits.”
Huseman was going to be moving into the new Freya Salon this month but her work has been indefinitely put on hold. She says she is currently not doing any at-home styling like some people she knows are doing to make ends meet. She said she doesn’t want to put her clients or family at risk of spreading the virus anywhere at this time. Huseman says that after the stay at home order is lifted that stylists will have to take a few extra steps to protect everyone by performing the proper sanitation procedures. “We have to perform them very thoroughly. Any proper sanitary measures we can do is important once things are back up and running.”
Huseman said that some stylists may wash people’s hair before and after cuts as another way to combat possibly spreading the virus. She says that may be at more of a cost to the salons in the long run, but it’s a small price to pay for protecting everyone’s health. Huseman says that once the virus is contained she doesn’t foresee any cut to services offered by salons. She says that customers should do their part and stay home if they feel sick, wash their hands, cover their cough if they have one, and possibly wash their own hair before coming to the salon when things reopen.