Brittney Cutler
Special to The Lake Report/Niagara Now

Niagara-on-the-Lake salon owners say haircuts were long overdue for some clients after the region moved into the COVID red zone on March 1.

It was the first week salons could open all year and the phones didn’t stop ringing, said Sandra Cocetti, owner of Bliss Aveda Concept Salon in Virgil.

The salon's hours haven’t changed, but the business is limiting the number of clients inside and maintaining social distancing.

“Safety wise, we’ve extended our services, so it gives us enough time obviously to do our sanitizing, restructuring of our space and we have a girl that floats around as our hostess to make sure that everything is polished and cleaned right after a client has come and gone,” Cocetti said. 

She said she learned a lot about reopening after the first wave of the pandemic, and it’s something that she’s kind of gotten used to. 

“Not that we want to get used to lockdown, but we learned from the first one that this is out of our control, we just need to do our parts,” said Cocetti. 

“Every day since we’ve been shut down, right after the holidays, I’ve been doing local deliveries, curbside, colour kits, and just communicating with clients, as emails have been popping in and overall just trying to stay positive,” she said.

The reopening was just in time for some clients, who were getting a bit shaggy.

One customer told Cocetti that before the salons reopened she took her dog to the groomer and “desperately requested the dog groomer to give them a haircut as well.” 

Another hair stylist, Gail Adams, from Rapunzel’s Hair Salon, said it’s good to get back to work. Like Bliss, her salon had been offering take-home colour kits.

“We’ve been offering to do colours, not here, but to give the clients the colour kits to do themselves at home. But that’s all we did,” Adams said. 

Adams said the salon has hand sanitizers at every station and at the front door for customers and staff to use. They also take clients’ temperatures when they arrive and only accept appointments. 

“Everyone is at least six feet apart,” she said. “Basically it’s one person in, and when they leave, another person comes in.” 

On an average day, they see 10 to 12 clients for appointments and they’re staying open longer to get the same number of people into the salon as they did pre-COVID.  

Adams said she’s glad to be open and back in business, but she noted the short notice about reopening from the provincial government gave her team little time to prepare for the bookings ahead.

“We’re trying to do colours and haircuts as well as book clients in, it’s hard. If we had another couple of days, we could’ve had all of our clients booked in and not worried about the phone ringing,” she said.