Beauty Routines Stand up to Coronavirus in Russia
As President Putin Orders Businesses to Close, Beauty Workers See a Mission in Staying Strong
With fewer victims of Coronavirus detected in Russia than in other countries and with a strong belief that the virus is something that happens abroad, Russia is following into the footsteps of its Western counterparts with a lag. It is only on March 25 that President Vladimir Putin ordered the businesses — save state and medical institutions — to close for one week. Schools, all types of training grounds and sports clubs, were closed a week earlier.
“This can’t happen! Russian women can’t walk around with uncovered grey hair. They (the government) can’t order us to close our beauty salon,” says Irina, an esthetic beautician in a salon in central Moscow.
Irina witnessed some slowdown in clients but not substantial since the breakout of COVID-19. When I ask her about health and safety as a concern for visitors and workers of the beauty salons she shrugs. Like many of her colleagues, she used to be a professional nurse for many years. She knows a thing or two about disinfection and wearing a mask. Irina has traveled the world and thinks that Russian women invest more time in coloring their hair, shaping, and dying eyebrows and eye-lashes than ladies do in the USA, Canada, and Mexico where she worked. Of course, she can only judge by her clients, she adds.
Anna Dycheva-Smirnova, beauty industry expert and director at Reed Exhibitions in Russia, organizer of InterCharm exhibition, has an educated opinion on the matter. She says that Russian women indeed use more beauty products per capita in items than the global average. This is in the number of products, rather than in dollar terms due to the ruble’s weaker power. Also, in the last 10 years, the beauty salon business in Russia has blossomed with salons of all sizes and price tags popping up to spoil us. It is not uncommon to see women in all walks of life in Russia who get manicures, hair color and eye-brows done only by professionals and never themselves.
Katya, a manicurist in Moscow, hopes that the management of her manicure-only salon would organize home visits to clients.
“We have an app where you can make an appointment and pay online. Hopefully, this app can be adjusted for home visits. All the manicurists would appreciate not losing their jobs and clients will like the convenience,” Katya says.
Just like Irina, she is sure that all the health and safety precautions can be observed during home visits with adequate sanitization and wearing masks. She adds that most of her clients have no idea how to do a pedicure themselves.
A lady waiting in the reception of a salon confessed to noticing the change in public perception. “I still follow my normal beauty routine more or less but I don’t put everything on Instagram anymore. I don’t want the public to shame me for getting my hair done and drinking my coffee in a café.” She says that she notices less shaming on social networks in Russia compared to say France or Spain where she has friends.
We can brag all we want about how much we care about our beauty routines in Russia and proclaim not being ready to walk around with uncovered grey hair. But if a crisis strikes — self-isolation and closure of beauty salons is a real crisis — we will have to adjust.
Anna Dycheva-Smirnova said that regardless of the country, the beauty industry adjusts in the same way. Whatever the treatment — whether it’s dying hair or getting a manicure — we lower the frequency from once in 3 weeks to once in 4 weeks, to once in 5 weeks. Then we take the treatments home. Anna Says that in the US, where the quarantine has been strict for a while now, ladies are taking their beauty routines at home.
“Treating yourself at home is both selfcare and therapy. Both are great during crises. Also, modern American women have never spent so much time at home!” Anna says.
She says that the sales of skincare, body scrubs and lotions have seen double-digit growth in the USA since the start of the quarantine. She sees the same tendency in Russia as globally, adding that she won’t be surprised if Russian women — who are generally crafty — start buying the gel-drying machines to do gel manicures at home.
Some say that Russian beauty salons are being irresponsible by not closing down, even criminal. However, I want to speak in support of beauty routines as a way to celebrate life and change focus away from fear.
As the wonderful abuse therapist and writer Melanie Tonia Evans says in her YouTube address “Coronavirus Pandemic — My Thoughts and Support” the fear is worse than the virus itself.
“We should indeed take precautions against the virus but also take measures not to be guided and governed solely by fear”.
There is a story in my parental family. During the Nazi occupation, my grandmother’s sister, then an 18-year-old, would spend the scarce cash she had to go to a hairdresser to enjoy hot water and a hairdo. It made her feel alive. She faced shaming and criticism. Maybe she did so only once, but the hairdresser-during-occupation story made it into the family legend book. I never talked to her as she died when I was young. I assume that the beauty treatment helped her believe that normal life exists, peaceful things like femininity are still of value.
