Irish Hairdressers Federation releases guidelines that may allow salons to reopen on June 29

The Irish Hairdressers Federation has released a set of guidelines it hopes will allow salons across the country to reopen at the earlier date of June 29

When announcing on Friday that some lockdown restrictions would lift earlier than planned, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said hairdressers would have to wait until July 20 to reopen.

However, new guidelines published today by the Irish Hairdressers Federation say salons will be able to restart business safely in phase three.

The third phase of lifting restrictions begins in three weeks.

The document contains over 100 specific recommendations for barbers and hairdressers to create the safest customer and employee experience possible. The IHF created the document in conjunction with the HSE and the Health and Safety Authority (HSA).

The measures outlined would allow hairdressers to open on June 29 with the broad use of PPE for stylists and customers recommended.

Other proposals include full Covid-19 training for staff and the screening of customers when taking bookings. Full sanitisation of work stations would take place after each customer, with all phone numbers being recorded for possible contact tracing.

Safe and cautious

The document says, “Employees should demonstrate sanitisation of hands in front of client before commencing services or when taking a break and restarting a client during longer treatments… The hairdresser or barber should maximise their body position as much as possible to increase physical distance from the client.”

Speaking about the guidelines, IHF president Danielle Kennedy said: “Our guidelines go above and beyond the Government’s advice on what to do, and will enable hairdressers and barbershops to reopen safely in Phase Three rather than Phase Four. We have spent the past six weeks working with experts, the HSA, and all parties in the hair and beauty sector to develop these guidelines.

“This is an extremely safe and cautious set of guidelines. There are in-depth procedures on staff training, sanitisation, hand hygiene, social distancing, screening of clients and use of PPE. There are 25,000 people employed in our sector and we want to ensure they can come back to work safely.

“If we wait any longer to reopen, hundreds of small businesses will go bust and thousands of people will lose their jobs.”

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