Coronavirus lockdown: Such a beautiful day for salons

Customers ‘treat themselves’ after lockdown shutdown

As the country continues to slowly re-emerge from the constraints of the lockdown, spas, salons and tattooists have become the latest businesses to open their doors again.

Screens are now in place and the services on offer are reduced, but on Monday they welcomed back customers for the first time since March.

Only services that do not involve working directly in front of a customer’s face are currently allowed, which Kim Watts, who owns LK Beauty in Shaw, said was “frustrating”.

“We have had quite a lot of bookings for massages though, so I think people just want to treat themselves at the moment, which is great,” she said. “We just hope it carries on.

“We all have to wear visors, which are really hot, but after the first day you just get used to it.

“Feedback so far is that everyone feels very safe here.

“The only downside is the social side of beauty salons just isn’t there now.”

The salon is currently opening 12 hours a day, seven days a week, which Mrs Watts said offers extra flexibility for clients.

She added that she had been able to make the most of lockdown as the business had a planned salon move happening at that time.

“We managed to do the refurb and have now reopened as one team, next to the hair salon,” she explained.

Jill Redwood, of Sequoia Hair and Beauty in Newbury, said they were able to get the paintbrushes out during lockdown too.

“We were a new salon and so unfortunately we were closed longer than we had been open, but we managed to finish decorating the salon during lockdown,” she said.

“We have started doing some manicures and pedicures and hopefully it won’t be too much longer before we can do more.

“It is very strange and quite different, but we are getting used to it.

“We are all wearing visors and we are allowing extra time between appointments, which ensures we don’t have too many people in the salon at the same time.

“We are very lucky that we have a spacious salon and we are fully booked for the first two weeks.”

The official announcement that salons, spas and tattoo parlours could reopen finally came last Thursday, with Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden delivering the much-anticipated news.

Beauticians had been left reeling last month, when it was announced that hairdressers and barbers could open again, but spas, nail bars and tattooists were omitted from the list.

Mr Dowden added that restrictions would be reimposed if the virus were to spike again.