Salon owner says she had to completely change business model to facilitate reopening

A Johnstown hair salon that has over 1000 clients on a waiting list for when they reopen says that they have procedures in place for ‘a brand new way of working.’

It's anticipated that an announcement will be made in the coming days confirming a date for hairdressers to reopen.

Ischia Hair, Beauty & Wig Clinic is the only salon in Meath that provides a wig clinic service to cancer patients who have been severely affected by the closure according to owner Sinead Monaghan who said:

“We have well over a thousand people on a waiting list and we still don’t have a date for opening.

“The spotlight is really on our industry at the minute because we are the last to open and we are very high risk because of the close contact.

“The reason we have so many on a waitlist, is that we have hair, beauty and the wig salon all under one roof.

“We have put a six to eight-week recovery plan in place and we are going to re-access everything in September.

“We have a dedicated private room for our wig clients so we haven’t been able to look after any of them that come in on a regular basis or any other clients that have contacted us over the past 11 or 12 weeks which is very sad.

“We would do a house visit if they weren’t well enough to come into us but we can’t do that now because it would go against all health and safety regulations and it’s hard for them to come into us because they are very vulnerable so we are just going to have to see how we can make it work.

“We want to look after all our clients, we are fifteen years open and we have a huge list of regulars so we are just hoping that everybody will just give us a chance to try and get through them as best we can.”

The number of clients in the salon at any one time will now need to be halved according to the hair salon owner.

“We would have the facility to take in 20 clients at any one time into the salon and we have to cut that in half because of the social distancing.

“We can’t take walk ins it will be appointment only and our appointments will be much longer than they would normal be because a lot of people will not have had their hair done in months and we have to sanitise thoroughly after every client.

“All appointments from now on can only be take with a deposit because we are running at half mast and can’t allow for any no shows.

“Clients will be asked to fill out contact tracing forms every time they enter the salon, they will have to sanitise their hands.

“We have had to adapt our treatment list to shorten services.

“Clients, will have to wear masks, we cannot provide magazines or papers during their visit, cloakroom and bathroom facilities will be restricted and sanitisation stations everywhere.

“Staff will be wearing PPE gear, they will be temperature checked every morning and will have gone through all return to work covid training before returning to work.

“We will be thrilled to open the doors and see all of our wonderful clients again but we just ask that they bear with us as we do our best to work through the back log.”