The days of people idly flicking through magazines while getting their hair done are gone for now, as salons seek to get the green light to resume trading earlier than outlined in the roadmap out of Covid-19 restrictions.
A ban on reading material is amongst more than 100 measures proposed by the Irish Hairdresser’s Federation (IHF) aimed at ensuring salons and barbers are safe to reopen.
According to the proposed measures, salons will also make extensive use of personal protective equipment (PPE) for stylists and customers, Covid-19 training will be introduced for all staff and there will be screening of customers when taking bookings.
The guidelines, published on Monday morning, are being produced to facilitate the opening of hair salons at the start of the third phase on June 29th and not July 20th, as planned in the Government’s reopening roadmap. They also include proposals for the full sanitisation of workstations after each customer and a ban on reading material.
Salon visits and customer phone numbers will also be recorded for contact tracing purposes. Hairdressers are not being advised to wear gloves.
“Gloves are generally not required for infection prevention and control purposes,” the guidance says.
“Where gloves are necessary, they must not be considered a substitute for hand hygiene and hands must be cleaned whenever gloves are removed.”
In terms of physical distancing, the guidance says where “2m employee separation cannot be ensured by organisational means, maintain at least a distance of 1m or as much distance as is reasonably practicable”.
It also says “the hairdresser or barber should maximise their body position as much as possible to increase the physical distance from the client”.
The IHF has argued that if it is forced to remain closed until the end of July, the shutdown will have lasted for 18 weeks when the average time hairdressers were closed in other countries across the EU has been between six and eight weeks.
The federation said its guidelines had been developed following engagement with the HSE and the Health and Safety Authority and with the assistance of health and safety experts.
‘Extremely safe’
Danielle Kennedy, the federation's president, said the new guidelines "go above and beyond the Government's advice on what to do and will enable hairdressers and barber shops to reopen safely in phase three rather than phase four".
She added that the federation had spent the past six weeks working with experts, the HSE, and all parties in the hair and beauty sector to develop the new guidelines.
“This is an extremely safe and cautious set of guidelines,” she said.
“There are 25,000 people employed in our sector and we want to ensure they can come back to work safely. If we wait any longer to reopen, hundreds of small businesses will go bust and thousands of people will lose their jobs.’’
