Barbers and salons will be able to open again from Monday
“It seems as if everyone is afraid that they’ll never be able to get a cut,” says hairdresser Eveline Zuddas-Paapst from Uithuizermeeden in the North of Groningen to RTV Noord.
Her phone has been ringing off the hook since Wednesday night’s press conference. She works alone, in a relatively small salon on the Hoofdstraat in the village. “A lot of customers last had an appointment three to four weeks before I closed. So it is not surprising that it is busy. Oh look; there’s the phone again!” she said.
Zuddas-Paapst doubted whether she would work with a mask, because it is not mandatory, but has eventually decided to: “I will do it. I am not afraid, but prefer not to take any chances. Not for myself, but for the customers too”, she said.
Via a hairdressing wholesaler, Paapst was able to find a box of fifty face-masks, but it cost her a ludicrous 75 euros, excluding VAT: “I now have to include that price in my rate. These are different times, so different prices.”
She would normally be able to serve two customers per hour on her own. She is now reducing that number to one. “Then I have time to clean everything.”
On the website of Hessel’s Hairfashion in Leek, it was so busy after PM Mark Rutte’s press conference on Wednesday evening that the server became overloaded. Since then, the hair salon can only be reached by telephone. “I’ve got red ears from calling!” says owner Hessel Bergsma. He will also extend the salon’s opening hours next week: “we expect to be open 65 hours next week.”
Bergsma entered his store on Thursday morning at 07:50, more than six hours later he was still on the phone, but he’s not complaining: “We would really like to get back to work. Not only because it got very boring, but also because of the financial picture”, he said.
Indeed, he expects people to appreciate their hairdressing visit a lot more since the outbreak of the Coronavirus. “You’re going to look at a hairdresser differently if you can’t go there anymore.”
Image via PxFuel. License-free.
