Carol Speirs of Animations Salon is ready to reopen, June 22.
By NANETTE LoBIONDO GALLOWAY
The fur will soon be flying as Downbeach hair salons get ready to welcome their shaggy customers under Gov. Phil Murphy’s Phase 2 reopening plan.
On Monday, Murphy announced that non-essential retail stores could open and restaurants can start offering outdoor dining starting June 15. Hair salons and barber shops can open on June 22.
“It’s about time, and yet we have to wait three more weeks,” Ventnor’s Animations Salon owner Carol Speirs said. “It’s been a terrible struggle. When he said June 22, we said we hope we can hold on that long.”
Speirs said some salons have closed permanently, but she is determined to have a strong recovery.
“We rely on the summer crowd to make it through winter,” she said.
Speirs, who employs three nail technicians and three stylists, said her workers were able to collect unemployment, but as the owner of the business, she was not eligible.
“We did get a PPP loan, so I was finally able to get some income for myself,” she said.
Family members were at the salon on Fredericksburg and Ventnor avenues on Monday to sanitize surfaces, install sneeze guards and get the store ready to reopen.
“We did a lot of cleaning and got rid of a lot of stuff. The shop will look a little more minimalistic. We will have to be open seven days a week instead of just five to make up for lost time,” she said. “We will be working extended hours for less money. The struggle continues.”
She is waiting to hear from state officials on what services they will be able to offer.
“I don’t know why they don’t know by now,” she said.
Speirs said since the governor made the announcement, her phones have been ringing off the hook.
“We don’t accept a lot of walk-ins and our operators have their own clientele so we always work by appointment,” she said.
She recently did a “virtual haircut” for a friend who lives in Philadelphia.
“He ordered a clippers online and while his son held the phone up, I walked his wife through the cut. She did a phenomenal job,” Speirs said.
Her customers want to be comfortable coming into the salon, and she even bought a thermometer as an extra precaution.
“If everyone cooperates, we will be good,” she said.
Speirs said she has a full supply of sanitizing wipes that she purchased before the shutdown.
“We were already wiping everything in sight before we had to close, so we are used to this,” she said.
At Daja Hair Salon on Wellington Avenue, salon owner James Armanini said the salon will be ready to open with all the appropriate protocols, many of which were already required by the Board of Cosmetology.
James Armanini of Daja Hair Salon on Wellington Avenue said customers will also be required to wear masks.
“Our stylists will be wearing masks, shields and gloves,” Armanini said.
Customers will be required to properly wear a mask so there is no drooping, and either wash their hands or sanitize them before entering the work area.
He normally has five stylists working in the salon, but he will reduce staffing to three during the week and four on weekends. Workstations are already about 10 feet apart, he said, and the middle stations won’t be used.
As is the custom, all tools, including combs and scissors, will be sanitized in Barbicide, one of the strongest disinfectants on the market, he said.
“All our operators have been Barbicide certified in COVID-19 protocols,” he said.
Armanani said he purchased several portable hair dryers that can be used at the station, and all chairs would be wiped down with Lysol between customers.
“We are scheduling to allow time to properly disinfect between appointments,” he said. “No more than eight people will be in the shop at any one time.”
Daja will be ready to open on June 22 and in just one day, he already has bookings three weeks out.
Armanini said he will temporarily suspend some services, however.
“We will do eyebrow waxing, but not facial waxing or beard trimming because the customers will be required to wear masks. They have to be secure and tight,” he said.
Armanini said the past 12 weeks have been difficult but his overhead is low and he turned off the gas and electric until he is able to reopen.
“Customers asked us non-stop to go ‘underground’ for cuts and color, but we sign agreements with the companies that we can never sell hair coloring to an unlicensed person. We did advise them how to obtain something close to their color in an off-the-shelf product.
“With everything that’s going on, people want to feel good about themselves and helping people look good is what we do,” he said.
During a recent Zoom teleconference meeting, a reporter for Downbeach.com noticed Ventnor Mayor Beth Holtzman was sporting a freshly cut version of the close-cropped hairdo she prefers.
When asked if she went “underground” to get a cut, Holtzman shared her secret with us.
“My dad cuts my hair,” she said.
Retired hair stylist and former Ventnor City Commissioner Paul Maccagnano with his daughter Mayor Beth Holtzman.
Paul Maccagnano, 86, who lives across the street from his daughter, became a hairdresser at age 27, and owned Todd D’Paul salon in Ventnor for 53 years. He, like his daughter, also served two terms as a Ventnor commissioner.
Holtzman said during his commission years, she worked in Washington, D.C., for nine months and lived at the Sheraton-Carlton Hotel, where the barber, “Mr. Pitts” cut the hair of all the Washington politicos, including four presidents. His last presidential clip was for George H.W. Bush.
“I had practically a crew cut at the time and he said he wanted to style my hair,” Holtzman said. “I told him, ‘I love you, Mr. Pitts, but only my dad cuts my hair.’”
Once when her parents were visiting the nation’s capital, Paul Maccagnano met Mr. Pitts, who wanted him to work for him at the hotel.
“My dad wound up cutting Mr. Pitt’s hair. Can you imagine, my dad cutting the hair of the barber who cuts the presidents’ hair?” she said.
Although Maccagnano is now retired, he has a barber chair in his garage and cuts Holtzman’s hair regularly.
“I wash my hair and then run over with a wet head so he can cut it,” she said.
Holtzman said her father cut the hair of several Miss Americas “back in the day.”
“We always joke he was a hairdresser and had four daughters. He was around women 24-7,” Holtzman said. “I’m blessed to have my father. At 86, he still makes me look good.”
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