A manicurist works on a customer's hand at a salon in Beirut, Lebanon, on Oct. 21, 2020. (Xinhua/Bilal Jawich)
by Dana Halawi
BEIRUT, Oct. 21 (Xinhua) -- Ahmad Araby, a hairdresser in Verdun, an upscale residential and commercial street in Beirut, sits in his shop early morning to fix his schedule of the day and give instructions to his employees to clean his salon and organize his shampoos, towels and other products prior to visits by his ladies clients.
While almost every sector in Lebanon was badly affected by the outbreak of COVID-19, hairdressers seem to be unexpectedly doing well each to a different extent.
Sometime later, Ahmad starts receiving his clientele and gives time to discuss with them her hairstyle, the trendy colors and cuts ahead of the coming winter season.
"COVID-19 may have affected us a bit at first, but people are back to their old habits now," Araby told Xinhua.
Araby said that women who have stayed home most of their times in the past months to protect their families from COVID-19 have become bored with the current situation and they are keen to return to their daily routine.
Meanwhile, Ayman Darwish, a hairdresser at Pace e Luce, a well-known salon in Verdun, told Xinhua that COVID-19 caused mainly a drop in the number of brides who visit his salon to fix their hair style and make-up for their weddings since parties have gone out of style with the outbreak of the virus.
But Darwish assured that the virus did not impact his daily work and the daily visits by his customers, saying that Lebanese ladies are highly conscious about their looks and latest trends.
"We hear a lot of our clients saying they want, at least, to look good when staying home with their husbands," he said.
Meanwhile, Houssam Salami, a hairdresser in Zarif, a less famous area of Beirut, told Xinhua that tough living conditions prompted his clients to reduce their visits to his salon while COVID-19 did not have much impact on his work.
"My clients and I take all the needed precautionary measures. In my belief, nothing stands in the way of a woman who wants to look good," he said.
"We are very keen to clean on a daily basis while using disinfectants in addition to seating our clients by respecting social distancing measures," Araby said.
Likewise, Darwish said he is asking ladies to keep using their masks and employees make sure to wash their hands regularly while wearing their masks all the time.
"Around 90 percent of our clients adhere to wearing masks all the time," he said.
Lebanon reported over the past two months a remarkable increase in the number of COVID-19 cases, creating concerns among some people while others continued to live normally despite the lockdown measures that were imposed recently in some villages and areas of the country.
People were seen in groups at pubs, night clubs and beaches without even wearing masks prior to the recent lockdown measures.
Jacques Choucair, head of the infectious diseases department at Hotel Dieu Hospital in Beirut, told Xinhua that hairdressers may possibly transmit the virus if they do not adhere to wearing masks all the time while forcing their clients to wear masks as well.
"Hairdressers tend to communicate with their clients when working for them. So they should be both wearing masks, not to forget that hairdressers must be aware of the need to wash their hands regularly because they are placing their hands on their clients' hairs and, possibly, their faces," Choucair said.
Choucair noted that the virus has become very much spread in Lebanon and he expects numbers of infections to increase further in the coming days as a big number of people have not been taking precautions at all.
Over the past few days, Lebanese health experts warned that hospitals in Lebanon has become full and incapable of receiving more COVID-19 patients.
Meanwhile, the Disaster Risk Management department in Lebanon reported low public compliance with safety measures despite record COVID-19 cases and deaths. Enditem
