Visiting your favourite hair or beauty salon used to be a pretty straightforward endeavour back in the ‘before days’. In fact, for most of us, the most testing part would be deciding whether to have tea or coffee while you wait. Enter one pandemic and, now, your local salon has more rules, regulations and etiquette guidelines than your average airport. There’s no doubt that The staff at your local beauty salon are as excited as you are to be back and, the following are a few pointers to make the experience as safe and pleasant as possible.
By the book
As you’ll no doubt be aware, lots of salons are now operating on a strict appointment-only basis and so, new etiquette rule number one asks you to please not just roll up hoping to get an on-the-spot haircut or treatment. Thankfully, lots of salons are now using Booksy’s scheduling app which makes it super-easy to book and manage your own appointment online. With salons now operating on lower capacity, it’s more important than ever to keep your appointment or to cancel it if something comes up – not only is it good mannerism but it will help your salon to manage bookings effectively.
Go solo
The opening up of salons, shops, and restaurants is, indeed, very exciting and you may be combining your salon appointment with a shopping trip or lunch. If this is the case, you may be tempted to bring along a friend or your children when you attend your appointment. Don’t. Your beauty salon is most likely struggling to maintain social distancing and will be doing its best to limit the number of people in the salon at any given time. It’s really important that you attend your appointment alone – and arrange to meet friends or family elsewhere afterward.
On the face of it
In many countries, including the UK, it is still mandatory to wear a face mask when visiting a beauty salon. While none of us enjoy this, it’s an essential part of keeping us all safe – so please don’t make busy salon staff remind you of this. When having a haircut, you may be asked to ‘unloop’ your mask so that your stylist can cut around your ears but, your mask must be put back on afterward.
Skin deep
When having a hair colour treatment, you will usually need to have a skin test prior to your appointment. The important thing to note here is that, even if you have previously had a skin test with a particular salon, the salon may require you to have another one if you have tested positive with COVID-19 since your previous test. Why? It is possible to develop new allergies if you have had the virus and so many salons will require a second test to prevent reactions on the day of your appointment.
A show of hands
I’m sure that I don’t need to tell you this but, you will usually be asked to use hand sanitiser on arrival at the salon. Even if you’ve just used your own in the car, you should always do this for the peace of mind of your stylist and other customers.
Pay it forward
Your beauty salon has been working hard to make sure that the environment is safe for you – and you can do your part by settling your bill either online or by contactless card payment. This simple request can significantly reduce the amount of hand-to-hand contact within a salon – and help to make sure that the doors are still open next time you want an appointment.
By now, we’re all accustomed to the things we need to do to ensure that we limit the spread of COVID-19 and, these things are extra important in salons where there is a necessary amount of person-to-person contact. By following the guidelines and being mindful of others, we can all help to keep our salons safe, secure, and, most importantly, open.
