KANSAS CITY, Mo. — At Skyline Downtown Salon, getting a haircut once stay-at-home orders are lifted will look and feel different.
“In a lot of ways, a hair salon now is going to feel probably a lot like going to a hospital,” Josh Crumley, who owns Skyline, said.
And that’s because there will be a lot of the same Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) that is seen in a medical setting.
“Instead of doctors wearing face masks coming out and telling you how the surgery went, [it’s] going to be a hairstylist wearing a face mask telling you how your color turned out,” Crumley said.
From the moment patrons walk in the door, everything from masks for the client and the stylist to wear the entire time will be the new normal, on top of stylists using gloves and, at times, face shields.
As for those couches that patrons seek out the moment they walk into a salon or barbershop to relax and enjoy a drink and a magazine while waiting – those will be temporarily unavailable.
“We’re not being jerks, you just got to stand for a minute,” said Crumley, who is asking for rules – not guidelines or recommendations – from the state’s Board of Cosmetology and Barber Examiners in Jefferson City.
“At no level is there requirements to re-open,” Crumley said. “There are just recommendations. In the hair-world, we need a baseline because so many of us are independent, and we’re operating out of shared spaces and we’re operating out of small spaces.”
That, Crumley said, makes recommendations hard to enforce because they’re not required.
“We don’t know enough about the virus to completely understand it yet,” Crumley said. “We’re learning more every single day, but it’s like an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure to just tell us how much an ounce is actually worth.”
As of Tuesday, the Missouri State Board of Cosmetology and Barber Examiners in Jefferson City encouraged licensees and business owners to follow local health department and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, but Crumley wants more.
For example, if he needs to order specific PPE, he needs to know where to get it from and early enough before reopening.
State law does not authorize the board to issue an order closing all cosmetology and/or barber establishments under its jurisdiction. Licensees and owners should take any action they feel appropriate with respect to closures. The board encourages all licensees and business owners to consult the most recent information available from reliable sources like DHSS, local health departments and the CDC.
“And they’re hard to come by right now,” Crumley said. “If they’re saying you can’t open without them and you give me two days to find 1,000 masks, I can’t win that like.”
While the salon is governed by and will adhere to Kansas City, Missouri’s rules for when and how to reopen, more direction from the state board in Jefferson City is what some in the salon industry are asking for before the state reopens without specific guidelines for service industries where close contact is required.
