5 Tips To Help Reopen Your Lash Salon Post Lockdown

As salons and spas prepare to re-open after lockdown, many of our clients, alumni and industry peers have burning questions about if, how, and should certain aspects of their work change.

We’ve put together our 5 top tips to help you prepare your lash artist business post-lockdown, to help break through the noise and give you some clarity upon the reopening of your businesses. 

Changes In Operation: Protecting Your Team And Your Clients

Lash artists have reached out to us, asking if we can expect longer working days owing to stringent and more frequent cleanliness practices. It’s inevitable that your days may be longer to allow you to adhere to increased cleanliness checkpoints in-between treatments. 

With a whole new set of policies to adhere to – disinfecting absolutely everything in-between clients, no overlap in between treatments, no waiting areas, one client at a time (the list goes on…), you’ll need to practise productivity at its finest! 

Don’t be hard on yourself though, it may take some time to get back into the swing of things whilst you readjust to new practices in place. 

Leave yourself a generous amount of time to finish each treatment thoroughly and give yourself at least 30 minutes in-between each client to carefully sanitize and reset your space. Flawless diary management is key here.

If you work in a team, you may wish to assign team members specific tasks by areas that they are responsible for throughout the day to improve flow, minimise movement across your space and ensure every step you put in place for your business, is followed. 

While it may mean a slightly longer day, it’s important to reframe why health and safety is important in a beauty salon alongside these added procedures - the paramount importance of protecting your clients, your team and yourself. 

You should also focus on how staff should be supported to maintain health and safety in a beauty salon. We recommend investing in a face shield that covers your entire face, as well as a KN95 face mask which helps protect against PM2.5 haze particles, food, chemicals, coal dust, cement dust. 

Provide thorough training and keep an eye on mental well-being, these longer days can take their toll quickly and you don’t want it to impede on mental health, productivity or quality of your services.

Stand Firm In The Quality Of Your Work And The Value Your Services Provide

It’s natural to have thoughts about incentives to encourage clients to come back to your salon. However, resist the notion to lower the cost of your services as enticement. 

A common mistake lash artists make is assuming that their clients won’t have enough money to spend on their next lash lift or new lash set. Whilst we appreciate that this could be the case, you too have been out of pocket for the last few months, not to mention the variety of new measures you’ll need to put in place further adding to your overheads. 

You don’t know the true spending power of your clients and it could damage your long-term earning potential and relationships should you wish to set prices back at their current costs down the line.

With longer days ahead, a backlog of clients to see and additional health & safety equipment to provide, safeguarding your salon and your clients’ welfare will be top priority. 

Many clients will be so excited to usher these moments of normality back into their lives. If there is ongoing concern, consider innovative ways that you can add value rather than discount prices.

Get Your Customers Excited

Being a busy lash artist means some of the things we’d love to tweak are not on always on the top of our to-do list! However given the current circumstances, now is the perfect opportunity to freshen up your services to ensure you’re offering the most up-to-date and in-demand treatments your clients desire. 

Cherry-pick your menu to include the most wanted treatments. Now is also the time to rid your offering of anything that doesn’t spark client interest. 

Use this time to up skill your techniques! Our Brow Lamination course is the latest craze everyone’s eyeing up right now and it’s currently free with every Lash Lift course you take online.  

Keep your clients and followers updated on the exciting changes you’re making to keep them engaged, and give them something to look forward to post-lockdown. This could be with social media, email lists or advertising on your website.

Anticipate Client Returns

Understandably, that lingering thought niggling away in the back of your brain of whether or not your clients will return for their overdue lash-infill or new set may be causing you a multitude of emotions right now – we get it. 

In an industry that contributes £6.6bn to the UK’s economy, there are definitely die-hard lash fans that will be eager to get first dibs on your appointment list. So use this time to keep them informed, inspired and get them excited about future plans.

While human-interaction is somewhat minimal and distant right now, you could offer quick check-ins via WhatsApp or social media to give advice about maintenance in the meantime. 

Consider reaching out to your VIP clients - they’re the ones you can rely on to re-book. Perhaps you can offer vouchers, set up a priority appointment waitlist, or take small deposits for future treatments to help secure slots too! 

As you do make changes to your practices and spaces, keep your clients up to date via all your communication channels (newsletters, social media etc.) to continue to build their confidence and trust in returning when they are able to. 

Auditing Your Work Space

Do we really need to wear protective face masks as a lash artist? And how do I apply lashes whilst practicing social distancing? Just a couple of questions out of many we would never think of asking ourselves as lash artists before now. 

Safety and sanitation is probably one of the most pressing subjects regarding salon safety and there are still many questions that go unanswered whilst we wait for more guidelines from the Government. However, we can start to organize and stock up on sanitation and PPE products in advance of opening, to ensure we feel set to treat our clients with confidence.

We’ve put together 6 key ways to help guide you in practicing utmost safety throughout your salon and home to ensure both you and your clients can continue with treatments confidently. Check them out here. [Link to safety blog] 

This is new to everyone, including us, but let’s do what we can now to help support one another and just remember, we are in this together! 

When we are given the go-ahead to reopen, it doesn’t mean you have to if you don’t feel comfortable. Take your time to evaluate and make sure you have all the necessary processes in place to ensure you feel confident going back to work - your clients will thank you for placing their wellbeing at the heart of your decisions.

Note: Of course, guidelines are forever changing thus we recommend you continue to check the Government’s website for the most up to date news on the health and safety regulations around Coronavirus. 

If you have any questions feel free to pop your questions in the comments box below.