COVID-19 has caused a lot of change in the world, especially in businesses and schools. One industry seeing increased popularity during the pandemic is the hair industry.
Between people demanding haircuts and others posting their attempts online, the world of hair maintenance has gained a lot of publicity recently.
Close proximity to customers — a touchstone of the hair salon experience — needs to change to avoid spreading COVID-19. With social distancing now the new norm, beauty schools all over the country are altering how they teach students.
Delmar College in Calgary, AB is taking precautions to ensure that students still have as much practical training as possible.
The school reopened on June 15, but said it isn’t taking clients yet to give them more time to prepare and be comfortable amid COVID-19 procedures. This also gives students a chance to catch up on assessments that must happen in the classroom which were pushed due to the pandemic.
Delmar will be implementing new protocols, including wearing personal protective equipment and keeping workspaces clean.
Lana Nimegeers, the salon manager at Delmar, said she is not feeling uncomfortable or worried about the changes because keeping things clean and sanitized has always been a priority for her.
“The cleaning hasn’t changed, it’s just that everyone’s awareness of the cleaning has changed,” Nimegeers said.
To her, this just means people cannot let things go anymore — they must be consistent and rigorous all the time.
Alena Schmaltz, who graduated from Delmar in April, said she believes the beauty industry is high-risk because they have to touch customers, but she feels better knowing salons are taking health seriously.
“I also see the amount of precautions the salons are putting in place and feel a lot more comfortable than I would have thought,” she said.
Tara Byrne, who works at Delmar in admissions, said she isn’t sure if more customers will want haircuts than before, but she does believe that the pandemic has been good for the industry.
“If anything, this pandemic has raised awareness to how important our industry is to most people,” Byrne said.
While there have always been clients that couldn’t wait and did their hair themselves according to Nimegeers, she is expecting a few more cases than normal due to COVID-19 hair salon closures when Delmar begins taking clients again.
“Many clients have been impatient, so they try and experiment,” Nimegeers said.
Mostly, she is just excited to get back to working with students.
In August of 2019, the school already moved to online classes for all the theoretical and textbook work, so the only adjusting left to do was for the hands-on lessons.
Hands-on classes have already started back up, with some additional restrictions, and the school will once again be accepting clients in July.
Byrne said the school is very excited to have clients come back in, even though the relationship may be slightly different.
“It definitely is more difficult as the stylist-client relationship is very social and now we are not engaging in extra conversations,” she added.
The stylist-client relationship is also very important to Nimegeers. It was one of the reasons she joined the career in the first place.
“I always think that I have one of the best jobs in the world because we get to see people at their best days and their worst days.”
She added that she loves that she sees clients on their wedding day, but she also sees them after a breakup.
“There is something very personal in the relationship,” Nimegeers said.
While the masks and face guards may make the salon experience different for the clients, Schmaltz said the experience may even improve.
“It’ll make the salon a lot quieter which might make the experience a bit more intimate,” Schmaltz said.
Nimegeers said she believes businesses must prove to their clients that they can be trusted, so both her and Delmar are trying to prepare their students and help them develop a trusting relationship with their clients during the pandemic and beyond.
“The currency of the day is trust,” she said.
Featured image provided by AW Creative via Unsplash.
