Outside haircut? Modesto-area salons take scissors to streets amid COVID-19 closures
As hair salons and barbershops remain closed for indoor cuts, a few intrepid Central Valley stylists are taking their clippers into the great outdoors instead.
After being shut down again last month because of the continued spike in COVID-19 infections in Stanislaus County, salon owners were given the green light to cut hair outside — with safety and other restrictions. But the realities of cutting hair on city sidewalks and asphalt lots in the midst of a sweltering Central Valley summer are something else entirely.
Still, for Revive Salon owner Jackie Wilson, who opened her new downtown Oakdale salon at the start of June, it’s the only way she can stay in business. So she is making the most of the much less-than-ideal situation by cutting hair on the walkway in front of her salon.
“We’re trying to make the best of it and make the best out of a difficult situation. But it’s a difficult situation for everybody. This is a way for me to give stylists a way to work,” Wilson said. “If you can envision going camping and getting a haircut, that’s what this is like.”
Three Revive stylists are working outside, using lawn chairs instead of the heavy and expensive leather hydraulic styling chairs. The state guidance for outside operation allows for salons to operate outdoors using umbrellas, canopies or tents with no more than one closed side. But they do not allow customers to enter the salons for any services, so that means no using the sinks for washing hair or rinsing out chemical treatments. And both customers and stylists must wear masks.
For barbers, who typically deal with shorter hair and male clientele, the current guidelines can be a tad more workable. Shorter hair requires less time per cut, and many men don’t bother with color treatments, perms and the like.
But for a lot of area salons, who see mostly long-haired and female clientele, the restrictions have proved more problematic. They’ve also taken a significant snip out of their bottom line, as color treatments make up the bulk of a stylist’s income.
Downtown Modesto salon owners Allison Dowdy, of Blades & Bottles, and Cheryl Avina, of next-door Volume Salon, held a joint one-day outdoor haircut fundraiser Thursday to test the waters for outside operation. It was both salons first work since the state rolled back salon openings (as well as gyms and churches) mid-July because of the high infection rate in the county.
The late-afternoon and evening session on 15th Street saw a lot of male clientele, as expected. Though a few women also showed up longing for a quarantine haircut. That included Modesto resident Beth Garcia, who got her first cut since the stay-at-home order was issued in March.
“Oh, my gosh, it felt so good because I really needed it,” she said. “Now I feel normal again.”
The joint al fresco session, held in Blades & Bottles’ new outside parking lot patio area, was a test for continued outdoor operation and a plea to allow salon owners to reopen for inside service, Dowdy said. She plans to have two of her barbers provide outside cuts every Thursday on the patio. But for the stylists, working outside has proven to be a bit like running an obstacle course with sharp shears.
For one, there’s the wind. Outside cuts are subjected to random breezes, and a good gust can send the customer’s drapes and hair blowing every which way. Then there’s the lack of amenities, without outdoor sinks what they can do is severely limited. And, of course, there’s the heat.
The stylists at Bella Vagos Salon on McHenry Avenue spoofed the concept of outside haircuts in a viral video they posted to social media last month. It included rinse-offs with a garden hose and drying hair from a moving car window on a 98-degree day.
But it’s more than just a little sweat that makes Volume Salon owner Avina worry about working outside. Instead of being in the still, dry conditions inside, the sticky and tricky outside situation means clipped hair flies everywhere. It also sticks to the stylists’ arms, faces and legs.
“It’s crazy, it’s hot, it’s itchy. It’s just not sanitary,” Avina said. “So we’re just out here to raise awareness of how safe everything was when we were open inside and how it’s unfair.”
When Stanislaus County salons and barbershops were allowed to reopen for indoor operation near the end of May, guidelines included keeping workstations 6 feet apart for social distance, having stylists and clients wear masks and taking temperatures and checking symptoms of customers. Avina’s salon remained open for six weeks before having to close again due the the county’s inability to slow the spread of COVID-19.
She said it took five weeks to catch up on the backlog of customers wanting cuts, and then the week before they went dark again, things had finally returned to normal. Now, her seven stylists are out of work and still waiting to receive unemployment benefits through the state’s overburdened system.
For Volume stylist Sandra Torres, working outside would make her only a fraction of what she could make doing cuts, colors and perms inside. “I’m a colorist, and we make our money on that,” she said. “It’s been really tough not working and not having money coming in.”
Torres and Avina said stylists can make in one color appointment what it would otherwise take them five to 10 normal dry cuts to make. But the bills haven’t stopped. While there was rent relief for some the first couple of months of the crisis, salon owners said many landlords now are demanding full payment even though they’re mostly shut down again.
“We want to bring awareness to everybody, it’s not just salons and barbershops and bars, it’s everyone. Small businesses everywhere that are trying to figure out how to balance the increasing debt that everyone is going into while being mandated to close,” Dowdy said. “We are trying to figure out how we can get open. We need to be open to in order to sustain our businesses, sustain our families.”
This story was originally published August 10, 2020 at 4:00 AM.
