SIDNEY — After two months of having her salon closed, Shelly Webb is ready to reopen on Friday.
“I can tell you right now, I’m not ready for retirement. I am over it,” Webb said.
Webb, who owns Perfect Touch Salon in Sidney, had closed the salon on March 13 to start remodeling the salon. She had planned to reopen on March 18 — the same day Gov. Mike DeWine would announce the mandatory closings of all salons and spas in Ohio, in an effort to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
“When you think ‘hey, I need a vacation,’ one week is good. But I’ve been off since March 18, so no income whatsoever, but you still have bills to pay. They still give you a water bill, they still give you an electric bill. You still have insurance. I’m ready to come back to work,” Webb said.
In the time Perfect Touch was closed, Webb and her family worked on further renovations to give the salon a new look for its clients. Likewise, they were able to start planning for reopening—something that has been made easier since DeWine announced salons could reopen on Friday, May 15.
With reopening, clients are asked to schedule appointments ahead of time and wait in their car until they are contacted by the salon and told they can come inside. Clients are required to wear a mask, as are stylists; before a client sits in a chair, their temperature will be taken. Disinfectant will be at each styling station for clients to use, and no client will use the same styling cape. Only three stylists will be working at a time to ensure the recommended six feet of social distancing between people, and clients can remove their masks while their hair is being cut. Clients will put their mask back on after the stylist is finished, to ensure the safety of themselves and other customers as they leave the salon. Before their next client, stylists will completely sanitize and disinfect their stations, including the styling chair. Door handles, doors, and other services are also sanitized before the next client walks into the salon.
“That is our protocol as of right now,” Webb said. “As for services, we’re going to keep it as if we never closed down. We are going back into full service salon.”
Webb said that her phone has been ringing off the wall since DeWine announced salons can reopen, and she’s fully booked for the foreseeable future.
“We are all ready to get back in here and get back to work. We are as excited to see our clients as they are to see us,” Webb said. “Yes, the first week is going to be crazy, and probably by the end of the weekend, we’ll be ready to pull our hair out, but it’s a good one. But this just means, hey, I’m loved and I’m missed, and that makes me smile.”
Heather Edwards, who manages The Hair Company and Day Spa, is in a similar position to Webb—she and her fellow stylists are fully booked through June and are more than ready to open their doors again.
“It’s just going to be more of a controlled setting, than what we were operating under before. We won’t be double-booking, because of the time it takes to sanitize a station,” Edwards said.
In addition to detail cleaning and sanitizing styling stations between clients, Edwards says the salon won’t be taking walk-in appointments, and clients are asked to wait in their cars when they arrive. Their stylist will call or text a client when they are ready for them to enter the salon. All stylists and clients will wear masks, and clients will wear a fresh, clean cape while getting their hair cut. Because the salon is already spread out, Edwards says it will be easy for them to observe social distancing between stylists.
While some salons won’t be drying hair, Edwards emphasized that The Hair Company will remain full service, despite new regulations.
“We’re all about customer satisfaction and experience. If I color your hair and charge you full price for it, and send you out the door wet, I don’t really feel like I’m doing my job,” Edwards said. “We’re taking a little bit more time for the appointments than we would have before.”
Edwards says that while there will be some differences in appointments between clients and stylists, she and her stylists are just doing their job, “ramped up a bit.
“We’ve had meetings with the girls, so everyone is on the same page. We’ve extended some of our hours—we already have a lot of hours normally, but we’ve added some extra hours,” Edwards said. “The girls are ready to come back to work. I don’t have anybody who’s not coming back to work—the girls are ready to return.”
