Exactly a month ago the government allowed salon and beauty parlours pan India to operate after the nationwide lockdown. Armed with gloves, masks, disinfectants and PPE kits, the industry still continues to adjust itself to the ‘new normal’. With staggered appointments and limited services requested, some businesses are looking to expand and provide home services, while others remain optimistic about the future.
Shahnaz Husain, Founder, Chairperson and Managing Director of The Shahnaz Husain Group, informs that the number of client appointments is lower than pre-COVID era. “Clients now filter their choice of beauty parlour based on the perceived hygiene standard maintained here. Expectations on personal and space hygiene are now heightened. Practices such as washing hands for 20 seconds, use of PPE kits, sanitiser and gloves, sanitising salon equipment, staggered client appointments, have become the new norms and ingrained in our psyche,” she adds.
At Braids N Beards Luxury Salon & Studio located at H224, Sector 63, Noida, customers are allowed to enter only prior appointment. “Business has gone down significantly. Earlier, we would get a minimum 20 customers a day, which has reduced to one or two. Generally, our business does not run solely on haircuts. We offer head-massage, facial, face-massage, bleach, de-tanning. After lockdown, we are not getting many clients for these services,” says Nidhi Sidhana, Co-founder of the salon.
Haircuts, colouring for grey coverage and waxing are the only two services in high demand. “We have to maintain social distancing, so we can’t take in as many clients as we did earlier. In one of our salons where we have separate cubicles, even our facial service is doing well,” says Dr Blossom Kochhar, Founder of Blossom Kochhar Aroma Magic. With her entire staff trained and certified in hygiene and sanitation by BWSSC and NSDC, Kochhar is making sure that the best of hygiene is maintained.
Increase in home services With more people opting for home services these days, Aashmeen Munjaal’s Star Salon has already started providing destination services. “Since clients are not coming to the salon for safety reasons, we are sending our teams to them. We make sure to keep our team fully sanitised all the time and ready with gloves, masks, etc,” says Munjaal.
With the growing demand, the salons are also starting skin and hair home services. “Services like hair colour, rebonding, waxing and manicure pedicure are provided at home. Our staff has been very loyal to us and we have created a team with 50-50 share. We are trying our best to give satisfying services to our clients and also to our workers,” shares Munjaal.
For Yes Madam, a beauty and wellness platform, providing salon services at home business is slowly gaining momentum post lockdown relaxations. “Word spreads fast and clients have recommended us to their friends because of the safety precautions we were taking. As of today, we are doing more or less the same number of bookings as compared to salons, which are hardly seeing 10-15 per cent of customers they were serving pre-lockdown,” says Mayank Arya, Co-founder Yes Madam.
With safety being a priority, Arya has incorporated 11 safety principles – from daily temperature record, training about COVID-19, mouthless threading, health status on Aarogya Setu app to sanitisation of kits and tools and more. “Not only are these incorporated but we are ensuring 100 per cent implementation of these measures by taking regular feedback from customers. The prices are very much the same. The objective is not to earn profits by selling PPE kits, but to ensure safe and hygienic services to our esteemed customers.”