A beauty salon owner has told how she felt beauticians were “put on the back burner” amid the easing of lockdown and said “more women” should have been involved in decision-making.
Jayne Saunders, who owns Pebbles Tanning, Nails and Beauty Salon in Norwich, said she felt if there were “more women” included in government decision making, more thought would have gone into the impact on beauty salons.
Mrs Saunders said: “I think that they’ve put us on the back burner a little bit. Hairdressers had 10 days’ notice before they reopened, but we had about three.”
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And she added: “How I felt, as a business woman, was if there were more women [making decisions] we would have had a bit more thought about beauty salons.
“They wanted the pubs and bars open and they neglected the beauticians.”
Mrs Saunders comments came after the government was criticised for its decision to open hairdressers on July 4, but keep beauty salons closed, which prompted accusations they were failing to acknowledge the importance of a female-dominated profession.
The government has now said remaining closed beauty services can open from August 1, and salons can offer facial treatments from that date, as long as services such as brow waxing and lash lifts are offered in a Covid-secure way.
Mrs Saunders said her salon, on St Giles Street in the city, was well prepared to offer facial treatments from August 1, following the prime minister’s announcement on Friday of the next phase of the reopening of the economy.
“We’ve completely separated upstairs and downstairs,” she said. “It’s very complicated.
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“We do a lot of face waxing like brows, so with that it’s not too bad because the client will be asked to wear a mask and our visors will protect us from any splash back.”
A spokesman for the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (DBEIS) said: “We have worked closely with the sector and public health experts to ensure these services can resume in as safe a way as possible. The prime minister has announced remaining closed beauty services can open from Saturday, August 1.”
And he added: “Treatments, for example eyelash extensions, which require the practitioner to be very close to the client’s face for an extended period of time, put workers and customers at a much greater risk of transmission of the virus.”
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