Personal client connection one of many COVID challenges facing Ottawa barbershops, salons

As Ottawa continues to navigate through the red zone, the long-term impact of restrictive measures is something that barbershop and salon owners worry about. 

Hair salons and barbershops in particular have been allowed to stay open, with cleanliness measures in place and minimum customers, however, the impact is felt among the clientele. 

“I don't think I've gone one day at work, where we’re not talking about [COVID],” says Fatima Zahra, manager of Hair Fellas Barbershop in Kanata. “I understand where people are coming from. When people come in, they only see me in the conversation – they don't know that I'm having this same conversation with 10 other people. That's really difficult on my end, at least.”

She says the pandemic takes a toll on her mental well-being, especially when there is a constant change in local regulations. 

In addition to uncertainty caused by the pandemic, the imposition of masks also pose a challenge to engage with clients on a personal level. Zahra explains that it has been difficult to build that trust, specifically with newer clients.

“I think, one of the hardest things for me is that I really would love to be able to see people's faces and their expressions,” she explains. “Especially when there's a blow dryer going off, I can't hear some of what people are saying; I can't hear anything [with a] mask. That's a little bit more challenging for sure.”

Though Zahra and her staff were faced with financial uncertainty during the first lockdown, they were able to acquire financial support from the government eventually, which was a relief. Among the many other salon and barbershop owners in Ottawa, she also didn’t understand why her shop was being shut down in the first place. 

“I don't really understand why businesses are made to suffer when clearly the cases are not coming from there,” says Zahra.

She says that her barbershop has been continuing physical distancing measures, and everyone inside has been wearing masks throughout the pandemic.

“We've been working eight months out of this 12 months of COVID, not one of our barbers or [one of our clients] has contracted COVID. So, I don't really understand why we were being shut down.”

Once her shop reopened, measures such as increased sanitization and allocating more time between each client’s session had to be implemented. She explains that these measures may have worked to her advantage.

“We're [now] doing 45-minute haircuts [to allow] for a 15 minute-time in between clients to sanitize, which was actually a blessing in disguise because it doesn't really take 15 minutes to sanitize your whole station, it's about a five-minute process,” she explains. “We tacked on 10 minutes extra for cutting, which is amazing because on top of the haircut there's building trust, having conversations, building relationships. And that requires time.”

Contactless measures such as using gloves, booking online appointments and presenting cashless payment options was something the staff at Prophetic Cutz barbershop was already doing before the pandemic.

It was just a matter of getting their clients comfortable with the restrictions going forward. 

“Some of the stuff that we were doing, especially coming from a traditional barbershop, people didn't understand. [They were] like, ‘Why can’t I just walk in?’”  explains Emmanuel “Fokhus” Mensah, CEO and founder. “The only thing that’s changed, is we have a lot more wipes [and] we’ve locked the front door, so you can't just come inside. And we have masks.” 

Prophetic Cutz had been running since 2018, but Mensah had been involved in the barbershop business for several years prior. As his business grew over time, he’d always sought opportunities to contribute to his community in different ways.

The recent red zone restrictions recently forced his team to postpone an indoor event where they’d offered free haircuts for people, especially kids, in underprivileged communities in Ottawa. 

“We were supposed to cut hair for free for about four, six hours in impoverished neighbourhoods. We deeply care about the community,” says Mensah.

He adds that people had personally messaged him asking if there were any other way he could continue the event.

“A lot of children [were] disappointed for lack of better words.”

Mensah does hope to continue creating more events in the future when things are people are able to gather safely outdoors. 

“There are times where we wanted to cut hair, which we still will — we're going to do in this summer, we're going to cut homeless hair, the hair of the homeless [and] it's outside, so that's one of the stuff that we were looking at.” 

Mensah explains that once COVID-19 hit, he used it as an opportunity to check on his staff and clients’ physical and emotional well-being. It also gave him time to reflect on what he could improve on as a business.

“When you see certain things like this, it brings out change in terms of the shop,” says Mensah. “We've been thinking about how can we future-proof the shop? How can we be innovative?” 

During the lockdown, however, Mensah’s major concern for Prophetic Cutz was trying to calculate how to financially support his staff of six, as well as figuring out how to pay rent for an unoccupied space. Though he had been provided with financial relief, he wishes the government could have provided support to smaller businesses prior to shutting them down.

“But what I would do in retrospect is before you tell people to close their doors put money in their hand,” he explains. “[When we] had to close the doors, I think I ended up paying about two months of rent – full amounts before money came into it.” 

Despite the fact that Prophetic Cutz is not operating at full capacity because of the latest red zone restrictions, Mensah says, regardless, he still has to pay full rent for his barbershop. 

“I just got an email the other day saying that the rent is going back to normal and that the rent relief that we had, [would] last a certain amount, I think,” explains Mensah. “We're not at 100 per cent capacity, but I'm being charged rent [for] 100 per cent capacity.”

The pandemic also gave Yetti Oshinowo an opportunity to find a promote her business.

Oshinowo, who is the owner of NY Hair and Beauty Warehouse, says that because her salon was closed during the lockdown, she was faced with the challenge of continuously trying to promote her product. This ultimately led her to create an online platform for the first time.

 “The online store really came about in May of last year, we were locked down from March [2020]; that was very frightening,” explains Oshinowo, adding that if it wasn’t for the pandemic, the online aspect might not have been launched. “Because we would not even sell at all, there was no way to sell without an online presence.”

Ottawa's NY Hair and Beauty Warehouse, which also serves as a salon, has approximately 1,600 unique items ranging from Black hair products to skincare and cosmetic products. She says that most of her customers feel a sense of excitement when they enter the store, simply because there is a wide range of products and they’re able to view the physical products in person. Through online browsing, it’s challenging to see the physical aspects of certain products. 

“No matter how it is online, it's not the same. And it's kind of bizarre giving customers orders through the door,” says Oshinowo. “Most people would wish they could come in, you know, giving orders to the door telling them [they] cannot come in, it's strange.”

The personal interactions with customers is something Oshinowo looks forward to once she can open her store at full capacity, but as of right now there is still a sense of fear among her customers.

“A lot of people are still scared to want to be out and about, you know, people still want to do things from the comfort of their own,” says Oshinowo. “Everything was going on smoothly before and then all of a sudden, lockdown. So, it takes a while for people to get back to what [they’re] used to.”

Though her salon is open and customers are allowed to browse the store, Oshinowo says that one of the challenges was getting her customers as comfortable as possible with ordering online.

The personal relationships and experiences with each and every client is something that is more valuable more than ever. 

For Zahra, she credits her clients for being loyal throughout these unpromising times. Although the pandemic uncertainty is on the mind of most of her clients, she looks forward to building those relationships once things are able to fully open.

Her fellow barbers and stylists feel the same. 

“I want us to be back [and] close together, masks off, and really fully sinking into that community vibe, where I'm talking to the person beside me, the clients are talking to each other,” says Zahra. “There's just like this openness that has been stifled with the masks and the separation.”

Mensah, on the other hand, advises barbers and stylists to continuously check on the mental well-being of not only staff but also their clients. He says you never know what every client might be experiencing, especially during a time like this. 

“One thing I highly encouraged for every barber is that they also become like, psychologists, [to] make sure that everyone's mental health is okay because people are mentally going through stuff,” says Mensah.

He adds, no matter how long they sit in the barber’s chair, the personal experience can have a major impact. “That's one of the powers and the beauty of a barber. It could change someone’s life.”