When beauty salons eventually reopen, we ask will you rush to prune your bush?
TALKING bans, compulsory masks, consent forms and even longer waiting lists . . . it is not the relaxing salon experience we are used to.
But this is what we face as the industry gets back up and running.
In Wednesday’s Sun, Nails Inc founder Thea Green called on the Government to let beauty salons reopen.
And today, our exclusive Fab Daily poll of 2,000 readers reveals what customers want.
Four in five of us (84 per cent) will return to our favourite parlours if and when they reopen.
Of those people, 20 per cent would book in for a treatment immediately.
But ten per cent of women who used to visit salons before lockdown say they will not go back.
Those in the industry insist beauty salons are some of the most hygienic businesses around, with staff often already wearing masks and gloves and strict health-and-safety regulations to adhere to.
But even with extra measures in place, such as PPE for workers, some women are still worried about health risks.
Almost half of women (48 per cent) are less likely to visit a beauty salon due to fears over Covid-19.
More than half (57 per cent) said they would be less likely to book an appointment because they want to save money, while almost one in three (29 per cent) no longer consider treatments necessary.
‘Crippling impact’
Future bookings for waxing on Treatwell — an online beauty booking platform — are down 58 per cent compared to before lockdown.
A spokesperson for the National Hair and Beauty Federation said the four-month closure had cost the trade £1.75billion. This has had a serious impact on the sector’s 250,000 workers.
Lesley Blair, chair of the British Association of Beauty Therapy and Cosmetology, said: “The impact of lockdown has been absolutely crippling to the entire beauty and hair treatment sector.”
But it is not all doom and gloom for the industry.
Two-thirds of those we polled (65 per cent) said they haven’t attempted beauty treatments at home during lockdown.
Of those that have, only 21 per cent said they would continue to do so once salons reopened.
When the industry is back up and running, many businesses have said they are taking extra measures to keep their customers and staff safe.
Benefit Cosmsetics, which has 268 brow bars across the country, will keep clients six metres apart, with masks mandatory along with washing hands before and after treatments.
Staff will wear PPE and only card payments will be accepted.
Shoreditch Nails in East London will ask clients not to talk for some treatments, such as facial waxing.
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This kind of reassurance might be just what women need to start booking future appointments.
The bikini line debate
Has lockdown given a new perspective on hair down there? Two readers on whether they’ll ever wax again
No: ‘I’ve saved £400 by waving bye to waxes’
GABRIELLA Rose, 25, used to have a bikini wax every fortnight, at a cost of £1,200 a year.
But the online marketing executive says she will not be forking out for hair removal again.
Single Gabriella, from Bournemouth, says: “I’m a gym enthusiast. I love swimming too, so I’m constantly wearing bikinis and tight gym shorts.
“I used to shave my bikini line but the hair grew back quickly – and thicker every time. Five years ago, I started having my bikini line waxed every fortnight.
“It was much more convenient and it saved me having to do any maintenance myself. Over the course of a year, it would cost me £1,200.
“When lockdown hit, I was a bit worried. I didn’t want to go back to using a razor again.
“For the first six weeks, I just let it grow. Once it got really long, I trimmed it back – and I’ve felt surprisingly fine with how it looks and feels.
“I’ve been wearing bikinis in my garden and if a hair is really showing, I shave it. But the rest I just trim.
“I’ve already saved £400 and over 12 months, it’s a massive wedge of cash I won’t be spending. I can’t believe how much pain I used to go through and the money I spent on waxing my bikini line.
“I don’t mind how it looks with some hair and I don’t think men care either.
“If a man doesn’t want me because I don’t have a wax, I don’t want him anyway.”
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Yes: ‘My bikini line reallyneeds rescuing’
WRITER Nilufer Atik, 44, from Surrey, tried to wax her own bikini line during lockdown. But the results were so terrible that she cannot wait to get back to her local salon.
The mum of one, who is in a relationship with Matt Davies, 39, says: “I’m not prepared to let nature take over. I hate pubic hair – always have done and always will . . . the way it springs up on the bedsheets after a night of passion or curls up over the top of a man’s underpants like skinny spider’s legs if left untrimmed.
“Personally, I like to whip mine all off. Forget neat. Completely bald – that’s how I’d always had mine, at £30 a pop until lockdown hit.
“I didn’t panic at first. I told myself lockdown would probably only last a few weeks and as I’d only just had a Hollywood, I had time before regrowth kicked in.
“But two months on, my lady garden began to look like an unkempt forest. I bought my own waxing kit online. It should have been easy but ripping the strips off my skin made me yelp in pain like an anguished puppy and there were hard-to-reach areas I just couldn’t get to.
“I ended up mostly bald but with random patches of pubic hair dotted around my crotch like I’d been electrocuted.
“Still, it was better than having a full bush! So I have continued with home waxes until the salons reopen.
“But until they do and I can get sorted, I am refusing to get undressed in front of my partner.”
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