Sydney lockdown: Boom times are not so cut and dried

Desperate Sydneysiders are driving 100kms for a spruce up, with many happy to try to break the rules for a half-head of foils.

Chloe Chalker, Emma Grech and Jennifer Aoun at Mittagong. Picture:Chris Pavlich

It was bad enough when Joh Bailey’s up-market hair salon in Sydney’s Double Bay shut down because of a Covid-19 scare, denying blow-dries to desperate clients.

Two days later, on June 25, every hairdresser across the city closed – caught up in the city’s lockdown, now in its eighth week. And that’s far too long for Sydneysiders who rely on a decent cut and colour to get them through the daily grind.

Which is why areas like the Southern Highlands, an easy 100km drive from Sydney, and still open for business, have suddenly become the hair destination of choice for many happy to try to break the rules for a half-head of foils.

A week or so back it all got too much for Jennifer Aoun, owner of the B Tempted Hair and Beauty salon in Mittagong. So many Sydneysiders were giving her staff a hard time when they refused to book them appointments, that Ms Aoun gave them specially printed T-shirts saying, “Be Kind” to wear at work.

“We’re getting a minimum of five calls a day from people,” Ms Aoun said on Friday. “It got really bad about a month into the lockdown and the last three weeks have been crazy.”

Her salon is not alone. Hairdressers in regional areas have been dealing with similar requests.

It’s serious stuff in a society in which it’s estimated women spend on average $300 a month on hair, make-up and massages. So serious that last year, hairdressers ­remained on the federal government’s list of essential services and were allowed to stay open in lockdown, their services deemed critical for mental health.

This year, regional salons have been forced to request the driving licences of new clients and police have advised Mittagong hairdressers to check customers carefully. There are more than 20 hairdressing businesses in the Southern Highland, including the Bowral branch of Joh Bailey’s chain, which remains open.

Ms Aoun said about 60 per cent of the calls to her salon have been from Sydney people, with others from regional locked-down areas. She has also explained to long-term clients who live in nearby locked-down areas, but are permitted to work in Bowral and Mittagong, that a haircut is out of bounds.

“Some people are confused,” she said. “Everyone says to me, I am an essential worker so I can come in.”

She’s grateful to be able to trade but says the influx from locked-down areas is disappointing.

None of this is a surprise to the industry body, the Australian Hairdressing Council, which also worries about clients who arrange with their stylists to do a cut and colour at their home or even a blow-dry in the backyard.

Chief executive Sandy Chong, who owns the Suki salon in Newcastle, said that before that city went into lockdown last week, a lot of Sydney people were travelling to the area.

“We have a few people (in the salon) who are brilliant gatekeepers and we have systems in place to screen people when they call up,” she said. “We had one woman from Sydney arguing with us that she spent $500 a month on her hair and we were missing out if we didn’t give her an appointment.”

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has hinted that when vaccination rates are higher, hairdressers may be able to get back to work.

Ms Chong said: “If they open up hairdressing and barber shops it would be great for the mental health of the community but we want to make sure that our industry is safe.”

The council was so unhappy with the decision to allow salons to open last year that it lobbied, unsuccessfully, for it be closed, arguing staff could not socially distance and were vulnerable. This year it did not need to lobby: the government recognised hairdressing work is up close and personal.

Ms Chong said the sector was likely to face staff shortages when salons reopened because many hairdressers were leaving for more future-proof jobs. Border closures meant the industry had lost about half the visa-holders who had been a significant part of its workforce.