Canberra’s hairdressers will tomorrow get a start working through the droves of unshorn Canberrans after the ACT’s lockdown officially ends at midnight tonight.
Businesses in hairdressing, beauty, and personal services along with several other industries will reopen from tomorrow in a trimmed down capacity, operating with up to five customers at once.
Hairdressers across Canberra have been frantically taking appointments since late September after hearing they would be able to reopen when lockdown ends on 15 October – with a backlog of clients eager to get in the chair for a clip.
Owner of Cocos Hair salon in Watson, Vera Vujic, told Canberra Daily she’s spent the last three weeks leading up to 15 October calling her clients to book them in.
“It’s been a huge task,” she said.
The books at Cocos are now full until the end of November and Ms Vujic expects December to fill up too – November and December are typically the busiest months of the year for hairdressers.
“The December period will get booked out as well, it’s just a matter of time,” Ms Vujic said.
“Everyone I’ve spoken to are extremely excited and can’t wait to come in … It’s going to be a nice feeling.”
With three staff, Ms Vujic will manage the five-customer capacity limit by having her team take one client at a time to begin with.
Given Cocos has a larger floor space, at full capacity each hairdresser would normally manage two clients at once.
“When you have a rule when you’re only allowed to have five clients in at one time it does stop your ability when you have the ability and the space to do more,” she said.
“That’s going to factor in given we haven’t worked since the 12th of August, we’ve missed all of that and now we’re going to have to regain all of that back.”
Ms Vujic said her experience with this lockdown has been “very different” to last year when hairdressing was classed as an essential service.
“We didn’t have to close, and it was up to the individual,” she said.
Back then, Ms Vujic was only closed for 10 days while she thought through how to run her business upon reopening.
“People were so glad after 10 days, so now after eight weeks it’s a long period between having haircuts and hairstyles so the jobs are going to be bigger,” she said.
“People just have to understand everything is going to take a bit longer to do.”
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