How beauty salons went underground, without waiting for help from the state

One of the most popular issues in social networks today: "Where will you go first after quarantine?" Someone chooses to sit in a cafe, someone is shopping, but many talk about the desire to finally go to the beauty salon: get a cut, paint. Moreover, it is not only about girls.

“People really miss us,” says Alexei Lokonsev, founder of the Top Gun barbershop network. - Every day it arrives in personal messages: “Please send me Barber home.” But we do not do that. I write: "Wait, surrender." But there are thousands of such messages from men. ”

Beauty salons could open in Moscow at the first stage of removing restrictions, that is, May 25. However, this did not happen. The mayor of the capital, Sergei Sobyanin, said that "no one was dying without a hairdresser." But the owners of beauty points in Moscow themselves warn that their industry can suddenly end their existence.

On May 25, photos with a hashtag #Saepnevsalon began to appear on many beauty salons in Instagram. This flash mob was organized by the Association of Entrepreneurs of Beauty Salons (APSK) so that the government pays attention to the beauty industry and finally calls the exact dates of the opening of the salons.

Otherwise, according to the market participants, many salons simply will not survive the pandemic.

Many masters under these conditions began to work at home or in semi -underground salons, where the police periodically visit. The correspondent of "New" studied what is happening with the beauty industry during self -isolation.

Beauty under the cover

- Girls, good afternoon! Can I get to you at the week?
- Can! But write better in Watsap.

The salon in the north-west of Moscow closed with all the other points during the quarantine-but only for new visitors. Old clients or people recommended by them continued to write to the masters and walk on eyebrows, nails and a staining haircut.

Only the number of visitors has changed. In a spacious room, no more than two masters, constantly in masks and protective gloves are in a spacious room.

It is not clear from the street that the salon continues to work: the upper light in the room is turned off, and the main entrance is closed. A few weeks ago, visitors approached this door, called the administrator on the phone, who let everyone in. But then the police looked into the salon.

“Apparently, someone“ merged ”or they themselves saw from the road that people are crowding here,” says one of the masters. - Well, they came up, began to knock on our door. We lurked. They did not open. They left. But since then, through the main entrance, we are not allowing anyone.

The entrance to the salon now resembles a whole special operation: they explain the client how to find a black entrance, but they ask not to stand next to him. You call a few minutes before you come. The administrator clarifies on the phone: is there anyone nearby? Look around. Then it begins to turn the key in the door lock.

The client should quickly run into the opening door, after which it immediately closes. Further, about two minutes you lead you along concrete crossings: part of the room is clearly not belonging to the cabin, and there are some repair work. Rather, they walked. To quarantine.

The entrance to the passenger compartment is through the back room, where the masters usually have a snack and drink tea. You squeeze between the cabinets, welcome the manicure doping your tea and go inside.

On this day, masters with the administrator, frozen, watch Putin's next appeal. Online is already coming to an end, friends send encouraging messages: "Guys, it seems, they will open you!"

But the long -awaited announcement does not occur.

-Did you pay something in compensation? I ask.
- Oh, of course! - the administrator sighs. - Nothing. I still have my own IP too. So there, while you fill out all the documents ... - and waves his hand.

Master of the hands of a tester

The salons were preparing for their business would not fall into the first five of the opened industries. It seems that they will have to cut nails under the cover for some time.

Non -paces were especially affected by quarantine. Many of them do not even hide what they continue to work: some lay out a contact phone for recording on social networks, others write posts about going home to the house for additional money. The networkers were really closed for quarantine all the time.

“Many of my competitors simply will not survive this crisis,” explains Alexei Lokontsev, founder of the Top Gun barbershop network. - For example, some of them had long wanted to expel the lessor: they delayed the rental payment, and the business itself was not in the best condition.

Now they will definitely drive them out. In February 2020, in Moscow there were 940 barbershopes, according to 2GIS. I am sure that when we open, and this is unlikely to be earlier than the middle of the summer, there will be no more than 400 of them. We have 150 points in Moscow, 10 of them will not open. But these are those whom I already wanted to close. ”

According to Businesstat estimates, by the end of 2018 there were about 98.9 thousand beauty salons throughout Russia, and in recent years their number has increased. It is also clear that the bulk of the institutions falls on large cities. For example, in Moscow in 2017 there were more than 6 thousand salons. And this is excluding barbershopes or private masters who take home.

The forecasts are disappointing: almost 2/3 of the salons risk not open after quarantine.

And those who nevertheless open will have to encounter not only the need to somehow make up for financial losses, but also comply with the strict requirements of Rospotrebnadzor.

However, if earlier the department spoke about the mandatory installation of individual “booths” for visitors, then from May 12 it was decided to “soften” measures. So, now among the recommendations there has been an offer to provide services to visitors at a safe social distance of at least 1.5 meters. That is, we will soon see the drawn floor squares not only in grocery stores.

“How to understand this: not to approach the client closer than one and a half meters? The master of the hand needs, or something, lengthen two meters? " - Lokontsev is perplexed.

Since April 5, many services of the services, including two Topgun barbershop, have opened in Tula. Now, according to the requirements in the cabin, there should be no more than five people.

“This is one administrator, two barbers and two clients. Sometimes customers come with children, they say: "He will wait for me." We are forced to expel the child, and dads swear at us, offended, ”says Lokonsev. - It is necessary to work in masks, we ordered them before the pandemic: they prevent the penetration of small particles of hair into light masters. But soon we will work in these special alien robes. Well, what to do. "

According to the professor of the Faculty of Social Sciences of the Higher Service of Svetlana Barsukova, a sharp collapse in the service sector and such restrictions will lead to the growth of the “shadow” segment. “This process is going on now,” Barsukova explains. - The masters of these salons will give their personal phones to customers so that they come to them. And at home they will simply serve customers without constant reflection on distance. Naturally, all this will go past taxation. ”

For himself a makeup artist

Prior to official quarantine, Anastasia did not believe that insulation would last long. She worked as a master of manicure and pedicure in one of the capital's salons. “In the last working days, we have not yet understood what awaits us,” she says. - We did not understand how we would be for a week (we were talking about a week) to sit without money. No one knew that it would stretch for two months. ”

In the early days of self -isolation, Anastasia refused to customers. However, then the quarantine was extended, and the bank, in response to the question of mortgage holidays, stated that the girl does not fit any of the categories, and she still needs to pay 35 thousand a month for the apartment. And also support a young daughter and retirement mother.

“Here I began to understand that the state“ threw us ”. I had to take everyone at home. Of course, with all sanitary measures. All my clients are people who went to work and wanted to look good. Literally under closed doors, we accepted our customers with a sense of fear, responsibility and hopelessness, ”says Anastasia.

It is still difficult to determine how great the losses of the salons will be. On the cabin lies rent, salaries to employees - not only to masters, but also to administrators and cleaners, but also taxes.

A little more lucky by the private masters who work at home. Some of them are decorated as self -employed, part - as an individual entrepreneur, part - are not decorated at all.

“My acquaintances, who from the individual entrepreneur, have now received 12 thousand compensation,” says Marina, a master in hair removal. For many years, she left the salon and works for herself, at home. It is recognized that even these 12 thousand by Moscow standards are very few. “I myself now have one at a maximum of three clients a day,” she says. - For comparison: before pandemia, I took ten, or even more people. She worked almost all week except Sunday. My income has now fallen four times. But I can’t stop working either: I just have nothing to live on then. ”

In order to somehow brighten up the expectation of the end of the quarantine, as well as cover at least a small part of current expenses, many salons began to create special “isolation” sentences.

“The first thing that everyone was invented was sets for removing manicure at home, but in fact it does not greatly increase sales,” says Lina Dembikova, stylist and creator of beauty Call Me Baby. - We thought we could make online, and launched the course “for our own makeup artist”. It cost 3,500 if you go through yourself, and 5000 if with advice from our makeup artist. We earned some part of the money on it.

And a few days ago we have prepared a new online product-“Moms-Fuels”. This is a project in which mothers or dads, by the way, can learn how to make their daughters styling, weaving. And, in principle, this is a good story, because we realized that we can also produce an online product. ”

Perhaps, due to such online courses, people will temporarily be able to abandon the campaigns even after self-isolation. According to the sociologist Svetlana Barsukova, due to the loss of income, people will increasingly visit the economy-hairdresser or even cut their house at home. “I know people who have mastered their own hair coloring and suddenly realized how much they overpayed before,” she says.

“I have no feeling that customers will immediately“ rush ”somewhere after quarantine,” Lina Dembikova admits. - Because people still have a feeling of fear, misunderstanding. This has become more obvious by the third month. If the first month everyone was invigorated, the second month they also tried to do something, now I have a complete feeling of frozen time: people do not understand what to do, where to run, start working or not yet. I think that people will begin to return very smoothly to the world. ”