Salon, beauty parlours await customers post amid relaxations in lockdown

The salons and beauty parlours have been allowed to operate in Dehradun in the fourth phase of lockdown but people are still avoiding such places.

 According to various barbers and salon owners, they are earning only about two per cent of what they used to earn before the lockdown. Some salon and beauty parlours owners have even stopped opening their shops due to lack of customers.

 A local salon owner Vasundhara Sharma said that she has earned only Rs 500 since last week. She added, "I pay Rs  600 per day to each of the hairdressers in my salon which is more than what I earned last week. Initially, I thought that customers will increase this month because all the salons and beauty parlours have been closed for over two months. Obviously, the customers are still avoiding unnecessary visits to any place."

Ashfaq Ahmed, a local barber said that people are calling him for home visits to give them a haircut and other services rather than coming to his shop. “Customers say that they will pay me a few extra bucks to give them my services at home.

I, obviously, do not go to everyone's house. If there are more than three to four houses in the same locality, I do visit them.

 Only a few people are visiting the shop these days and most of them include those who attempted DIY haircut during the complete lockdown and messed up their hair. The maximum number of customers I have been visited by since last week is five in a day but sometimes there are zero customers too," said Ahmad. The salon and beauty parlour owners said that they are using masks, gloves and sanitisers while providing services to customers besides regularly disinfecting their equipment but it is not possible in every part of work.

"We cannot do threading or give a specific haircut to customers while always wearing gloves. In some cases, we need our bare hands for precision," said a Raipur salon owner Tripti Tripathi.

She added that they regularly sanitise their pieces of equipment the customers do not need to worry about viral infection but to ensure safety they still suggest customers to take a full body shower after reaching home.