Hairdresser does marathon session before lockdown

When Cape Sable Island hairdresser Amanda Nippard heard the news on April 27 that another provincial COVID lockdown was coming at 8 a.m. the next morning, she didn't take long to react.

With memories of the stress and anxiety that followed last year's lockdown trying to accommodate clients in a timely fashion, Nippard decided to add 12 hours to her eighthour workday, completing a marathon night-long session of cutting and colouring hair for clients before the April 28 shutdown came into effect.

The provincewide lockdown and sticter restrictions are in place until at least May 12. The measure was taken by the province and Public Health to bring down the rapidly increasing numbers of COVID cases.

Nippard, who owns and operates So Stylin' in Stoney Island, Shelburne County, had seen on social media where a salon in Halifax had done something similar before a lockdown came in the city.

“At first I thought they are nuts. Then the more I thought about it, I thought no, they are actually smart. After the last time we got locked down it was so bad trying to get everybody back in. I knew it was only going to be two weeks, but if I did the extra work this time it would save me from being so exhausted when I did open back up.”

When there was a COVID shutdown last year, it took Nippard three months to get caught up.

“I have a really large clientele and I'm used to doing families together,” she said, such as colouring a wife's hair, then giving the husband a haircut while the colour is processing, for example.

“We aren't allowed to do that anymore. Everybody has to have their own time slot. You aren't allowed to double book yourself because of social distancing, so instead of being able to produce 12 clients a day, that's cut in half.”

Nippard took out her appointment book and began messaging clients with upcoming appointments. After telling them about her plans to do a night-long hairdressing session, she said, “I had maybe two clients that declined."

"They said thanks for thinking of me but I'm going to try and survive the two weeks. Everybody else I messaged jumped on board and did not care what time their appointment was. They were thankful I was willing to do that.”

In order to serve as many clients as possible and to be as fair as possible, Nippard limited the colourings to root touch ups with no extras “to give more people the opportunity to not be on a crazy long wait list when I open back up.”

Nippard finished her marathon session at 7:45 a.m. with 15 minutes to spare, completing eight colours and five haircuts.

“Everybody left with both ears, so it was good,” she said.

A runner, “I always wanted to do a full marathon, but this was not the kind of full marathon I thought that was in my dreams to accomplish,” said Nippard joking. “At the end of it there wasn't even a banana or a medal like you get at a real marathon.”

Still, Nippard said she would do it again in a given situation.

“It helped me just as much as it was helping my clients. I will know when I open back up if it was worth it because I know what I felt like the last time.

If I don't feel that way again, then it was worth it.”

Last time, she says, it was incredibly stressful.

"I have clients who have been with me 18 years since I first opened, and I felt so incredibly guilty I couldn't fit them in in the first couple of days because I felt I owed them that. They had been so loyal to me," she said. "But then I had people on my book that had appointments the day we were shut down. I felt equally guilty about all of my clients. Everybody was in the same boat. Everybody had waited. I tried to do it as fair as possible.”

Nippard said the past year has been very challenging for hairdressers. With only one client allowed at a time, as opposed to two, “you really are cutting your income significantly when you add that up over the run of a day or a year.”

With two weeks off, meanwhile, Nippard said her goal is to learn how to make scones.

“I really like to bake. I baked a lot last time we got shut down so that's what I'm going to try and master.”