Salons open after 2 months, but few follow govt orders

Deepak.Karthik@timesgroup.com  25.05.2020

It was nothing short of a reunion of long lost friends on Sunday when the regular customers of salons met their trusted barbers.

Almost two months after shutting their doors, salons in the urban areas of the state reopened on Sunday. While a few salons remained shut despite the goahead since staff could not be summoned for work, those that were opened had their regular customers queuing up.

Those in rural areas had heaved a sigh of relief a week back since salons were reopened in villages on May 18. Some of the residents in the cities and towns drove down to the suburbs to get a hairdo. But for the majority of city residents relief from dangling manes came on Sunday.

“I have not changed my barber for the past 15 years. Even for the four years I was working in Chennai, I would go for a haircut only during my visits to Coimbatore once in two months since I was wary of changing my salon,’’ said Sunil Kumar, a software professional from Ondipudur in Coimbatore who was waiting for his turn at a salon.

In Trichy, barbers chose WhatsApp as a platform to give appointments to their customers to avoid overcrowding. Barbers who do not have smartphones informed their customers to come at particular time slots. Chairs in the waiting rooms were reduced to ensure social distancing. A few customers brought their own towels to avoid using the common apron for a haircut. The barbers and customers wore masks.

As the seats are supposed to be cleaned every time a customer vacated, barbers said their operation expense particularly to buy sanitizer has surged. “We may increase the charges by Rs 10 to Rs 20 as we have to frequently disinfect our gears,” P Dharmalingam, secretary of Trichy district hairdressers’ association said. Water consumption in the salons has increased due to frequent handwash. Customers were given hand sanitizers upon entering, and their aprons were sprayed with disinfectants after every use.

Though the state government insisted that the barbers wear hand gloves, it was rarely followed with hairdressers citing difficulties to remove the hairs with gloves on.

Adhering to the precautionary measures was not just expensive but also timeconsuming as they had to sanitize the equipment, change gloves and change the sheets after attending to each customer. “I had managed to attend only 12 customers in a day and had done only haircuts. On a normal day, I would attend at least 25 customers,” said R Vignesh from Ojass salon in Coimbatore.

(Inputs from Nivedha Selvam, Karal Marx and V Devanathan)

LONG PENDING: A child gets a haircut at a salon in Trichy