From shaggy to short, an end to split-ends – Barbers, hair stylists can get back to work

LACONIA — May 11 will be the first day in nearly two months since anyone in New Hampshire has had a haircut. That is, unless they were brave enough to turn the shears on themselves. Not every aesthetician is eager to re-open, though.

During his press conference on Friday afternoon, Governor Chris Sununu announced his “2.0” version of his stay-at-home order, which now allows for limited activities in parts of the economy that were previously deemed non-essential, as the state sought to limit the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Barbers and hair salons can re-open on May 11, as long as they comply with a list of precautions, which includes no blow-drying of hair, empty waiting areas, cloth face coverings by everyone inside, and no more than 10 people in the shop or salon at any given time, and they should be stationed 6 feet apart, among other guidelines.

Nicole Guarino opened “The Shop,” a salon in downtown Laconia, last year. She said she thinks it’s a “stretch” to claim that people who cut and style hair are “essential” workers. “Nobody has ever suffered or died from their hair,” she said, though she acknowledged that a trip to the salon can provide meaningful benefits to the client’s esteem and emotional health.

“We do a lot on a personal level. We’re kind of a refuge, and I understand that,” Guarino said. “I want to be open as much as everyone else. I’ve been behind the chair for 15 years, and there’s nowhere I’d rather be. But if I have to be worried about hurting someone while I do it, I would rather wait until I know it’s safe to do without suits and masks and gloves.”

Every stylist and barber who is licensed by the state knows how to maintain a sterilized work space, she noted, yet, even with masks and other precautions, it won’t be a 100-percent guarantee against transmitting the virus between a stylist and client, especially since they will be so close to one another, for an hour or more.

Wearing masks and other precautions, she said, “It takes away, really, from what we’re doing. On some levels, it’s an intimate, personal experience. You spend years and years touching people, becoming part of their lives, and now you have to treat them like they’re radioactive… The whole experience is going to be kind of for naught.”

Guarino said she had a lot of supportive messages and emails from clients when she closed her shop in March. She said she is concerned about not only her own health, but that of her clients and their families. The demographics of the region mean that all of her clients either are or have close contact with someone who is in the “at-risk” age bracket for this virus, and she doesn’t want to think that she has played a role in making someone gravely ill.

Even so, she knows it won’t be easy to keep her door closed.

“I think we’ll be put in a really difficult decision, I don’t know 100 percent what we’ll do,” Guarino said. “It’s going to put a lot of pressure on me to open. People are going to eventually make a choice based on convenience.” She said she will consider the prescribed precautions she has to follow, then decide if that’s an atmosphere that she finds acceptable for her business. “I think we’re going to be kind of backed up against the wall… Eventually that choice will be made for us, we’re either going to have to open or not open again, ever.”

At Polished and Proper, a barber shop just a couple of blocks from Guarino’s salon, owner Bree Neal said she also was watching to see what the specific requirements were, but that she was more eager to get back into business.

“I don’t see why it is a bad idea,” she said. Neal noted that barber shops and salons are used to doing a lot of disinfecting, and that her business already uses an appointment software that could keep people from having to wait inside for their barber – instead they get a text telling them when their chair is ready.

But the details of the requirements could prove too much to bear, Neal said, especially for a business that hasn’t made any money in nearly two months. If they have to buy more capes so they can be laundered between each use, and provide personal protective equipment to their clients, that could eat into her much-needed revenue.

Those concerns aside, Neal is ready to plug in her clippers and hone her razor.

“I’m personally for it, because it’s very doable, with the exception of getting the PPE,” Neal said.