The Irish Hairdressers Federation has today published a set of safety guidelines which it hopes will allow its members to reopen earlier than planned.
Under the revised roadmap for reopening the country, hairdressers won’t be allowed to reopen until Phase 4 starting on July 20.
This is due it being considered a ‘high-risk engagement’ with a lot of face to face contact over an extended period.
But the IHF has developed a set of guidelines with over 100 specific safety measures which it hopes will allow the sector to reopen in Stage 3.
Among the main recommendations are:
- Extensive use of PPE for stylists and customers
- Covid-19 training for all staff
- Screening of customers when taking bookings
- Full sanitisation of workstations after each customers
- Salon visits and customer phone numbers recorded for contact tracing
Commenting on the publication of the guidelines, IHF President Danielle Kennedy said; “Our guidelines go above and beyond the Government’s advice on what to do, and will enable hairdressers and barber shops to reopen safely in Phase 3 rather than Phase 4.
“We have spent the past six weeks working with experts, the HSA, and all parties in the hair and beauty sector to develop these guidelines.”
“We have taken the advice of health & safety experts, microbiology experts the HSE, the HSA and the WHO in preparing the document.”
The Irish Hairdressers Federation is the trade association for Irish hairdressers and represents over 400 salon owners nationwide, who in turn employ over 5,000 stylists.
Danielle Kennedy described the full document as an “extremely safe and cautious” set of guidelines” for staff and client safety.
“There are 25,000 people employed in our sector and we want to ensure they can come back to work safely.”
“If we wait any longer to reopen, hundreds of small businesses will go bust and thousands of people will lose their jobs.”
