Coronavirus: Splitting hairs over hairdressing salon time limit backflip

Hairdresser Heather colours a customer's hair … it takes way longer than 30 minutes. Picture: Dan Peled/AAP

If there is one thing women understand, it’s that thirty minutes at the hairdresser isn’t a hairdo so much as a hair-won’t.

Also, a hair-doesn’t, as in change colour in that amount of time.

It seems that some chaps in the Federal cabinet were schooled on this overnight, because the 30-minute limit for salon appointments has been lifted.

In a media release this morning, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he had “listened to the feedback” about the “practical implementation” of the COVID-19 measures around hair salons, and agreed with premiers and chief ministers at National Cabinet last night that the “instruction regarding 30 minutes per patron will be lifted”.

This will be effective immediately, but that the four sqm rule per person must still adhered to during the appointments.

Personal contact must also be limited, prompting this Tweet:

How to get a haircut in 2020😂😂#haircut #StopTheSpreadOfCorona pic.twitter.com/iZoMnkxQlp

— 𝔇𝔯𝔞𝔤𝔬𝕤 𝔏𝔲𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔞𝔫 (@DragosLuchian4) March 25, 2020

Some hairdressers are pleased – they’re trying to keep their businesses alive, and they are taking essential precautions, such as the use of gloves and disinfectant – While others are furious.

Sandy Chong, CEO of The Australian Hairdressing Council, has called on the Prime Minister to shut salons down.

“We are totally outraged that the government is putting our hairdressers and our community at risk by keeping us open,” Ms Chong said.

“You’ve got 40,000 hairdressers and barbers who are now at risk.”

A 10-person limit on attendance at funerals can also now be lifted in “hardship cases” which yesterday included a funeral for a man with eleven children, after intervention by 2GB’s Ben Fordham. All eleven children were able to attend.

Waxing salons are closed.