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It is increasingly common for clients to call Neil Moodie’s hair salon in advance to check the WiFi. “Everybody brings their laptop and they do their work, especially when they have the color ready. [I’ve] had a couple of people do a Zoom meeting while they’re here with the camera on.”
WFH – or working as a hairdresser – has its stresses. “That means our internet has to be perfect,” says Moodie, whose salon is based in Spitalfields on the edge of the City of London. “Which isn’t and it’s a nightmare.
As the WFH trend becomes more popular, some salons in the UK are incorporating i-ports, desks and quiet spaces where people can work remotely while enjoying salon services. Brooke Evans, owner of a salon based in Ironbridge, Shropshire, says a significant number of clients work while their color is being processed. “With that in mind, we’ve installed USB ports and other outlets at every station since we opened. They have since added coffee [and] a bar area and other seating areas for clients who need a quieter space to work on the phone or video calls and just a more comfortable space to work on a laptop.”
WFH recently went viral on TikTok after a PR executive in the US posted her FaceTime interview with a Gen Z employee who was having her hair washed. A young assistant told Newsweek, “As long as you’re doing your job, I don’t see any harm.” Her manager seemed to take it in good faith: “It doesn’t matter to me where she is as long as her tasks are done on time and well,” she said.
Hairdressers added office tools to attract customers. Many businesses are facing closures during pandemic shutdowns and high energy costs. The rise of telecommuting also presents significant upheavals for salons, says Caroline Larissey, executive director of the National Hair and Beauty Federation, noting that hair and beauty businesses in inner-city and business districts are particularly affected because they often rely on a regular clientele of office workers. workers. According to the Local Data Company, the sector has seen a sharp increase in closures since 2020, with a net loss of 1,721 to 17,047 facilities.
Millie Kendall, chief executive of the British Beauty Council, a trade body, says suburban salons are doing better. They can benefit from people working from home sneaking in cut and color, usually at lower prices.
After the blocking restrictions were lifted, the sector received a brief boost from clients seeking professional attention for their impractical locks. “It’s been amazing how many people have come in post-Covid and had their hair done,” says Moodie. This is despite a small black market of rule-defying hairdressers cutting hair in their own homes, in the back of salons and in gardens.
But in the past few years, clients have been squeezed by the cost-of-living crisis, Kendall says. Plus, she says, shifts in attitudes about aging mean “women of a certain age are wearing longer hair,” encouraged by actresses like Sarah Jessica Parker, Helen Mirren and Julia Roberts. The fashion of embracing gray also had an influence.
All this is associated with increased electricity bills. A survey by Uswitch last year found that energy bills make up 40 per cent of hairdressers’ costs, driving up prices. The rise of TikTok tutorials and the spread of good at-home styling tools have also disrupted the business of hairdressers.
But a hair salon can be a community hub as well as a remote work space. A recent project led by King’s College London is working with salons to spread awareness of breast cancer and heart disease to customers in south and west London.
Kendall emphasizes the importance of the salon as a place for socializing. It is “much more than a haircut. If people have problems, they talk to a hairdresser, they absorb a lot of trauma.”
Long before the pandemic, the American sociologist Ray Oldenburg identified the need for a “third place”, somewhere between the home and the office, where community could be built and ideas exchanged. With the addition of WiFi and charging ports, hairdressers are a worthy contender.
emma.jacobs@ft.com