Wait for haircut won’t be much longer as B.C. begins to open next week

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) — Hairstylists and barbers across the province are getting ready to unholster their scissors and clippers.

Their services are included on the list of businesses and services able to operate in phase two of the province’s reopening plan.

A provincial health order shuttering the industry until the end of the month remains in place but the Provincial Health Officer has indicated this is likely to change.

Greg Robins, with the BC Beauty Council, says members have been talking with the provincial government about ways to make reopening possible for them.

“One of the small concerns is the availability of personal protective equipment — masks, gowns. These are the types of things that have to, or should be in-place for salons to open up.” he adds.

In the interim, Robins says many of the 3,000 salons and spas his council represents have been going through voluntary industry certification to prove to their customers — once they reopen — they are safe and healthy businesses.

“You might have a one or two-person operation, where keeping the traffic is fairly straight forward. And then you’ve got larger salons that have to work much harder so that they can control the number of people going through.”

The organization is recommending stylists and barbers avoid the temptation to open up a back-alley operation out of health concerns.

“People who are mobile or working out of their home, if they’ve already been doing it, and have got it down to a science, they’re good,” Robins says. “It gets tricky, though, when you move a stylist out of a controlled environment.”