Your visit to a salon now need not be a hair-raising experience

Why going out for a grooming session is not a close shave with infection

This issue of Times of Urbania is the twenty-fifth of Volume 2 or the second year's edition. Our first issue of 2020 started with lockdown, and we had kept readers engaged in the past six months when even newspapers scaled down their content.

Times of Urbania has been a corona-free zone. This article aims to help our readers step out boldly with Unlockdown 4.0 that starts today, relaxing most restrictions on movement and gathering people across India.

I was one of the men challenged by lockdown's restrictions on salons remaining open in lockdown. I went for a couple of months without a haircut and looked so different in my long hair that a friend at Urbania could not recognize me when met while shopping for vegetables (the face mask made the camouflage complete). That friend suggested the jugaad from one of the social media forwards doing rounds in lockdown: use a razor blade fastened to a comb with a paper clip to trim my hair gently. I bought blades from Eden Super bazaar, fastened one to a comb, and ran it through my overgrown hair. The gadget did trim my hair but nowhere near what a salon haircut delivers. I then had a haircut with scissors and kept my hair in check for two months.

One of my professional assignments in lockdown was advising a salon care product range on their employees' safety norms, customers who operated salons, and patronizing hair stylists. We had to address salonists across India over video calls. Those sessions' key outcome was we could give men and women confidence that they could operate safely by adhering to the industry's skill council standard operating procedures (SOPs). I was impressed to find that India has a Beauty Wellness Sector Skills Council (BWSSC) that had helped its industry prepare detailed steps for opening and operating salons after lockdown. Salon care product companies like my customer trained their users on BWSSC SOPs and certified them on knowing infection control of COVID-19. My salon industry experience enthused me how some sectors had systematically faced a pandemic with continuing functioning and serving the public.

My funny predicament in June and July 2020 was, I advised hair care services, but I could not go and get a haircut. My first opportunity for an out-of-home hair cut came in July when local administration relaxed our city's restrictions. I went out to a small salon close by home at Rabodi and waited as the salonist was shaving-off all hair on the head of the customer he was assisting. This salon was a one-person shop, and the owner was working since morning without food to cater to the rush of customers after lockdown. I saw the shop owner disinfect the seat and his tools before he cut my hair. I took off the mask during the hair cut, as it is very impractical to get your hair cut with a mask. The stylist had used a reusable apron, which he used on me when I had the haircut. The haircut at this small salon cost me only one hundred rupees.

My most recent hair cut was yesterday when I went to a Jawed Habib Hair and Beauty outlet very close to my Hiranandani Estate Road office. I wanted to save time looking for an open salon by walking across to a hairstyling shop.

I had to wear shoe covers they gave me at the entry to get inside. When I entered with my face mask on, the salon staff sprayed a sanitizer on me (below my chest) using an atomizer. I had to turn around to let them spray on my back too. I noticed that they use the spray to sanitize salon seats in between customers. I took a seat and put on a reusable apron the salon gave me. The stylist also was wearing a reusable salon and a face mask.

I had to keep my face mask on through the haircut. The stylist had me remove the tie from my ears and keep the mask on my nose when cutting hair near my ears. Apart from having to maneuver my mask, the rest of my hair cut was like at any other time.

I found many customers at this salon, and the staff was going about their routines like any day.

My stylist used a trimmer after getting my ok for it, and I wondered whether they had a practice of not using scissors. However, after cutting my hair with a trimmer, the stylist used scissors and had bare hands to give me a haircut. After the stylist finished my hair cut, I paid for only fifty rupees more than a regular haircut. Jawed Habib transfers only the additional cost of the reusable apron and the sanitizer to its customers, which we should appreciate. It is right now important to draw customers back post lockdown. I also found them discounting procedures to attract customers in an economic slowdown.

For my salon sector engagement, I have studied the different factors in play during a close physical contact during a grooming session. In India, the BWSSC has commendably guided its industry players to resume business and operate safely during a pandemic. When a salon complies with infection prevention SOPs, your visit, there should be reasonably safe. Research studies from other countries show that even when stylist tests COVID-19 positive, none of that stylist treated customers tested positive.

COVID-19 transmission requires prolonged and close physical contact. If a salon customer quickly gets their grooming done and minimizes the time they spend inside, a haircut can be a safe activity.

Also, as my experience shows, whether branded or unbranded, salons have good knowledge of hygiene procedures. They are using them to give you confidence that your safety is also their concern when you visit their premises.

I know that many people would have questions on my suggestion above after reading this issue.

You can leave a comment on the web or get in touch with me by email to answer your query.

I hope you liked this article and request you to share it to fill people with confidence that we can only revive the Indian economy by returning to our normal lives of pre-lockdown days.

Personal and public safety norms shall bound us, and adhering to those, we should start resuming our routines.