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Alex* is a fermentation scientist who never misses a Botox appointment, even in a pandemic-stricken year when the service has been deemed non-essential. Thanks to a deal too good to pass up, she’s also tried Voluma injections during the past few months, along with a clandestine spray tan appointment (“They ushered me in through the back door,” the scientist says). But don’t tell her family or friends, much less her thousands of followers on Instagram — Alex is keeping her beauty treatments during Covid completely hush-hush. “I just felt like I needed to do something for myself, but it’s not something I voiced — even to my fiancé,” she says. “The climate of the whole world right now is in such turmoil and I feel like being self-centered is not really something I need to broadcast to everyone.”

Alex isn’t the only one who’s keeping her treatments a secret. When Jordan’s* eyebrow specialist announced he would be taking appointments following the initial reopening of California salons in July, she secured a first-in-line appointment straight away, along with an in-home hair appointment, Botox and filler injections, a lash lift, a spray tan, and a PRP facial. As a content creator and brand consultant, it’s second nature, if not part of her job, to document her beauty treatments online. But not during the pandemic. Jordan has kept nearly every experience close to her chest. “I did post the PRP facial to Instagram Stories, but if anyone came back on me for it, I was prepared to say that I had filmed the treatment before the pandemic.” 

Because of people like Alex and Jordan, business at hair, nail, and skin salons has surged — and held strong — after statewide re-openings between May and September. Dermalogica, which works with some 20,000 skin service providers worldwide, reports that customers largely resumed treatments as soon as they were able and booked appointments ahead of re-openings in some states (something that helped garner a 250-person waitlist at the brand’s West Hollywood location). But you wouldn’t know it from talking to your friends or even scrolling Instagram. 

As Amy Ling Lin, owner of the New York City nail salon Sundays, notes, business was fully booked after reopening in early July, but sharing on social media had plummeted to about 10% of what it was before the pandemic. Though clients were hurrying back, they did so with a more somber tone, Lin says. “When we opened, it was definitely very, very quiet in the salon. There was no conversation, whereas normally [getting a treatment] is a very interactive experience.” Though business has since held strong in her three locations, social sharing has only crawled back to 50% in September from what it was before initial closures in March.

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❕Announcement❕ Our studios will be reopening on July 6th! Thank you to everyone who supported us online during the COVID-19 closures, we are immensely grateful. You kept us going; you gave us hope. To the sundays family, you guys are truly amazing, and we miss you. ♥️ Our online prebooking is LIVE, so hop onto our website for a mani/pedi session! Our safety measures: 1. Temperature checks for everyone entering the studio 2. 50% capacity at all times 3. All of our tools are sanitized to the highest degree but feel free to bring your own 4. Specialists will wear masks, gloves, and new uniforms will only be worn inside the studio 5. Serving beverages with one-time use cups More details can be found on our website.

A post shared by sundays studio (@sundays_studio) on Jun 19, 2020 at 12:11pm PDT

Given the devastating magnitude of COVID-19, which has resulted in the deaths of more than 220,000 Americans, public health officials rightfully exercised extreme caution when making reopening recommendations. But beauty treatment providers, who have largely been the first to close and the last to reopen under state and county mandates, argue that those in legislative positions are inherently biased toward their line of work. “I think part of it is due to a lack of diversity and inclusion at the legislative level,” says Aurelian Lis, CEO of Dermalogica. “To put it bluntly, too many men who don’t understand what the industry is about make the decisions. Though they have all the best intentions and are working to keep people safe, they are using their own value systems in deciding whether something is important or not.”

Though most salons offer built-in hygienic practices and low foot traffic, that bias may have pigeonholed beauty treatments as the pinnacle of “non-essential” services — in some states surpassing crowded bars, sweaty gyms, and social gatherings, like weddings. As a result, there’s been a massive shift in the perception of beauty treatments and even providers are grappling with the stigma. “I struggle with the idea that I own what can be considered a very ‘vain’ business and I should help with my community more,” says Tran Wills, owner of Base Coat nail salons in Los Angeles and Colorado. “There’s this guilt and almost shame that I feel and my husband and friends had to shake me out of that. The business is ‘non-essential’, but it is essential. I provide financial stability for staff and relief of clients.” 

For customers, beauty treatments can be a form of self care and a way to find peace, especially during trying times. As Kadi Lee, a celebrity colorist who co-owns Los Angeles’s Highbrow Hippie Atelier, puts it, “In the beauty industry, we’re touching people and it’s an energy exchange. I’m the furthest thing from all woo-woo about it, but you really are affecting the client’s self esteem. Maybe you’re the only person touching them that day. I take that part of the job seriously because sometimes people really need that connection.”

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Reunited and it feels SO good! // After being shut down for 4 months, open for a few weeks, then shut down AGAIN, our entire crew finally got to see each other in person today to sit down and forge a plan for the future of the Highbrow Hippie atelier. . . In the midst of this global pandemic and moment of racial reckoning, we couldn’t be prouder of this team of 9, comprised of 8 different nationalities, immigrants, and children of the diaspora, who take serious pride in making everyone look and feel their best, and creating a welcoming and atmosphere for ALL. . . We look forward to taking care of our clients again, and will be announcing our re-opening protocols soon, both here and via our newsletter. In the meantime, we are sending love and massive gratitude. . . – Kadi, Myka, Ashley, Hector, Zoya, Cristina, Rafaela, Liz and Jenda. X . . #beauty #wellness #consciousliving #consciousbeauty #intentionalliving #sensorialwellness #slowliving #highbrowhippie

A post shared by Highbrow Hippie (@highbrowhippie) on Sep 3, 2020 at 12:01pm PDT

All the beauty service providers we talked to for this story note that in an era of social distancing, they’ve seen an amplified need for connection and safely-administered touch among their clients. For her part, Lin reports an uptick in bookings for her manicure service with guided meditation. She’s also noticed clients taking the time to privately thank their nail techs via DM, which is something that didn’t happen as frequently before the shutdown.

But in a time when both researchers and leaders in the wellness movement widely recognize the mental health, stress-relief, and mood-boosting benefits of beauty treatments — and officials have deemed them safe by most statewide mandates — why do we still feel the need to hide these forms of self-care? Dr. Sana Sheikh, a psychologist who studies moral emotions and guilt, notes an element of sexism at play. “There is, of course, a gendered component to what we categorize and condemn as frivolous,” she says. “This has been true long before the pandemic even hit.” 

Both Alex and Jordan are highly cognisant of balancing the personal, self-care payoff that comes with getting a beauty treatment with how optics may be perceived by friends and followers on social media. “Anxiety and depression are at an all-time high and people are lacking social interaction, so it’s almost more important that I continue doing these things if it makes me feel good and I can afford it,” Jordan says. “At the same time, being vague when sharing this stuff protects me; I can’t be quoted for something I didn’t say.” 

But there’s a deeper charge to living with this duplicitous point of view. “If someone is keeping their beauty treatments a secret — even if they may say they are fine with it — I would still suspect that their concern about others’ judgments serves as a mirror, on some level, for their own judgments about themselves and their actions,”  Dr. Sheikh says. “Secrets indicate that a person is likely navigating a conflict—and suggests the presence of shame, which is all about hiding from a real or imaginary other judging you harshly. Secrets are, in a sense, a compromise: doing what one wants while avoiding reproach from others or even from oneself.”

Alex has thought about this. But for her, discussing her latest beauty treatments “feels like it’s in poor taste,” she says. “There’s much more serious matters going on right now. How can talking about beauty treatments stand up against the pandemic, the political tension, the racial inequalities, the fires, and climate crisis? I wouldn’t dare undermine any of those things.” Dr. Sheikh acknowledges that sensitivity. “For some, the choice to keep a treatment quiet may not be based in shame but in thinking it’s good social etiquette not to take shine away from important issues of our times.”

In the end, whether we choose to advertise our beauty treatments matters less than confronting our own biases surrounding beauty. “One doesn’t need to announce everything to the world,” notes Dr. Sheikh. “But I would suggest that people explore all parts of their feelings, rather than hide or avoid them [and instead] unpack and acknowledge both their wants and their fears.” Being more transparent with ourselves may not only help ease beauty’s societal stigma inflamed by COVID-19 — it may also deliver what we’re actually striving for in this pursuit of wellness to begin with: a sense of inner peace.

*Names have been changed for privacy.

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When Loreen Hwang decided to revisit her perfume collection after four fragrance-free weeks in quarantine, the Beverly Hills-based lifestyle influencer reached for her special-occasion scents: the juice that costs $1,000 a bottle, the eau de parfum she can only find in Bahrain, the blend she usually reserves for yearly Oscars parties at the Four Seasons Hotel.

“I was just sitting at home and I was feeling bummed out missing my friends,” she says. “I’m sad for people that I’ve lost, people who are sick. I wasn’t working out and was watching social [media]. I was like, ‘I need to put myself in a better mood.’” Never mind that Hwang hasn’t gone to a party in months, nor does she plan to in the foreseeable future, or that she’s pairing these rarified scents with her new uniform of sweats and tees as the bottles she used to classify as everyday go-tos gather dust: Her self-isolation scents need super strength and major payoff.

“We don’t know how long we’re going to be indoors. In the winter, we might get quarantined again. I’m not going to hold onto my best stuff for whenever we can go out,” she says. “I just want to wear it and feel good.”

The Fragrance & Memory Connection

Hwang’s instinct to boost mood through fragrance is something that’s hardwired for all of us, whether we’re conscious of it or not, because no other sensory system is more directly linked to the brain’s processing center for memories and emotion than the olfactory.

Rachel Herz, PhD, a Brown University adjunct professor and neuroscientist who specializes in the psychological science of smell, recognizes fragrance’s power to affect our moods. “Scents have a very special capability of immediately triggering emotion because of where they are processed in the brain,” Dr. Herz explains. “As soon as we smell something, our amygdala, where emotion and emotional memory is processed, is activated before any other part of the brain, so you get an instant initiation of an emotional response.” The catch? That emotional hit only occurs if we’ve formed a prior association between the fragrance and the feeling.

As it happens, Hwang’s quarantine favorites aren’t just top choices because they’re expensive. They’re tied to strong emotional memories, too: hanging out with her best friend in the Persian Gulf, which she’d planned to visit last month; the time her mother marched Hwang, then 11, into a Parisian perfumery and let her pick out any scent she wanted in the whole store. “These fragrances remind me of people, and wearing them just makes me feel happier,” she says.

A scent’s power to evoke the aura of beloved people, places, and things that we can’t interact with while sequestered at home may also explain why fragrance sales have held steady despite widespread job loss and financial insecurity amid a global pandemic. “Fine fragrances are still selling and resonating with consumers, especially classic fragrances that remind the consumer of their favorite memories or transport them to another place or time,” says Linda Levy, president of The Fragrance Foundation. “I expect [this] to continue when we move ahead to the next ‘normal.’”

Evidence of fragrance’s elevating effects isn’t limited to anecdotes and market projections — it’s backed by science, too. “Our research has shown that perfume enhances a person’s mood,” says Stephen Watkins, a fragrance application scientist and head of health and well-being business support for Givaudan, the world’s largest flavor and fragrance company. “By choosing to wear a fragrance, people are tapping into a way to enhance their well-being and self-esteem.”

That’s not all, according to Sally Augustin, PhD, an environmental psychologist who uses sensory experiences to help people accomplish their desired goals. She notes scent-triggered mood boosts can be indirectly linked to physiological improvements, too. “Say smelling a scent puts you in a better mood,” Dr. Augustin says. “We know that when people are in a better mood, their immune system functions more effectively, so this could be a two-step way to influence health.”

Scents have a very special capability of immediately triggering emotion because of where they are processed in the brain.

Rachel Herz, phd

The Comfort Of Smelling Clean

As we navigate the reality of an unrelenting virus compounded by civil unrest, some may even turn to what they perceive as “clean” scents as a form of comfort. “From the earliest times, fragrance has been employed to mask bad odors and ‘fend off’ illness,” Watkins says. Beginning in Ancient Greece and up until the mid-1800s, the theory of miasma — which suggested unpleasant smells from decaying organic matter could enter the body and cause disease — was generally treated as fact. The idea was so popular that the medical community believed miasma to be the cause of the Black Death, cholera, malaria, and other fatal illnesses.

Judith Gross, vice president of creation & design, branding and marketing fragrances at International Fragrances & Flavors, Inc., also acknowledges the deep-seated connection between fragrance and health. “For centuries, fragrance has served as a medium for mankind to find wellness, and has been believed to hold healing properties,” she says, pointing to ancient Egyptian doctors as the first perfumers, and early priests who grew and distilled botanicals thought to have medicinal value. “Only under Napoleon was there a separation between perfume and medicine.”

Thanks to advancements in hygiene, sterilization, and the field of infectious disease, we know better than to think a scent we perceive as clean — whether it be balsam or freshly-laundered cotton — can do much of anything to actually prevent or combat illness. Still, these ideas may percolate as part of the collective unconscious and drive a pandemic-fueled desire for fragrances that pair with our picture of health.

What will be interesting to see, Watkins notes, is whether these “clean” scents take on a negative association in the future as they become intrinsically associated with this pandemic. “It will depend very much how positive or negative this period has been for individuals,” he says. 

Scent As Routine

Dr. Herz supports the idea that spritzing a new scent selected to be worn only during quarantine is likely to help form a strong sensory memory specific to this time. For some, the association will be a bummer, or worse: “One of the most powerful triggers for PTSD is scent,” she says. If one’s pandemic experience is particularly traumatic, the unique fragrance worn during quarantine could even be triggering to our future selves.

Different scents support different sorts of mental activity.

Sally Augustin, PHD

Even under stressful circumstances, some perfume wearers are intentionally adopting quarantine-specific fragrances to create a sense of order in a chaotic situation. After fifteen years working as a graphic designer for a home-building company (her first job out of college), Sari Sam was laid off last month — right around the time she had planned to request vacation days for a trip to Cambodia.

“I purchase a new scent every year around this time as I prepare for my summer trip. This year, I didn’t want to break the routine,” Sam says. “Now I don’t have a job anymore and putting on fragrance in this whole mess is reminding me of the routine I used to have when I went into the office — and that really helps.” Her new PTO-turned-quarantine scent is a breezy, citrusy number she finds uplifting and believes helps her be more productive. “Everyone needs a little sunshine at this time,” she says.

If spritzing a fragrance triggers positive associations or sparks action, Dr. Augustin is all for it. “Different scents support different sorts of mental activity,” she says. “At this time, when a lot of people probably need some emotional support, or at least something that makes them feel good from an emotional perspective, it’s cool to wear scents that you tie to something desirable in your life,” whether that’s a feeling of normality, routine, or motivation.

Will the very scent that motivates Sam now end up pushed to the back of her fragrance collection once the pandemic is over? She thinks otherwise. “This new scent will remind me of this experience, and I’m not going to think of it as a negative,” Sam says. “Before I was laid off, I was working 12 hours a day. Now I’m taking care of myself more, and I know for sure this will tie in with my fragrance. When I use it in the future, it will bring back the memory to focus on myself and my family.”

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“It’s 1:30 am. I’m very, very tired. Is this a bad idea? Absolutely. It’s a horrible idea,” says actress Allie Evans while holding up a pair of clippers. “But if there’s any time to fuck around with your hair, it’s right now.” 

Like many of us confined to our homes during the COVID-19 pandemic, Evans suddenly felt compelled to cut her own hair last Tuesday — and she documented the entire process on Instagram Stories. When the clippers didn’t work, Evans reached for a pair of blunt kitchen shears and, within a matter of minutes, took her hair from a clavicle-skimming lob to a blunt bob that hits right at her ears.

“This is 100% a compulsive thing for me,” she says to me over the phone from her home in Los Angeles. “We’re in a state where we have absolutely no control of anything, and it can be comforting to try and control the one thing that you can… which is how I look and present myself.”

Evan’s rationale is spot-on. “When all else in the world feels so out of our control, one way to retain some is to control what we can,” says Dr. Vivian Diller, psychologist and author of Face It: What Women Really Feel as Their Looks Change. “Organizing our closets or cutting our hair can serve that purpose.” 

While countless memes and posts credit outgrown layers and split ends as the impetus to wield scissors after months of salon closures, there are deeper reasons behind the sudden influx of #quarantinecuts. The truth is, many people — whether they know it or not — are seeking more than a simple trim. From claiming control and processing trauma to engaging in playful experimentation or chasing the thrill of a “rebellious” act, there are multiple emotional and psychological triggers that prompt someone to make such a spontaneous change.

Take Meghan Montaner, for example. The director of education for a performing arts theater in Northborough, Massachusetts chopped more than six inches off her hair in a spur-of-the-moment cut a few weeks back. “It was just a couple days before my birthday and I was tired of feeling cooped up,” she says. “My husband had gone out to run an errand, I had gotten my son to bed and I had 30 minutes to myself. I took a shower, put a sheet on the floor, grabbed the scissors, and that was that.”

Montaner says the cut came, in part, from a desire to break up the monotony of life under quarantine, which Dr. Diller says is a common response to experiencing a long period of isolation. But Montaner’s move paid off in other ways: not only was she pleasantly surprised by the final look (“My hair looks better now,” she says), but she’s also riding a high of accomplishment from successfully pulling off something she’s never done before. “I think it was surprising what a positive experience it was for me to cut my hair and how much better I felt in that moment,” Montaner says. “It’s kind of liberating in a way because I was able to do something, affect something, change something.”

Making a change like cutting your hair can feel good because you’re taking action. When you take action, there’s a feeling of accomplishment.

PSYCHOLOGIST Suzanne Deggs-White

For a generation that has become increasingly dependent on outsourcing everything — from assembling Ikea furniture to prepping meals — the exhilaration that comes from doing something for yourself can be revelatory. Dr. Suzanne Deggs-White, a psychologist, professor, and chair of the department of counseling and higher education at Northern Illinois University, says that taking on tactile projects, like cutting your own hair, can tap a joy that might be lacking in quarantine. “Trauma and crisis stop us from feeling much more than the scary feelings for a while,” she says. “Making a change like cutting your hair can feel good because you’re taking action. When you take action, there’s a feeling of accomplishment. If you change your hair and it feels good, there’s a payoff — a freeing feeling that’s like having agency in the world.”

Reclaiming agency during a chaotic time is part of what motivated Janeese Castelar’s off-the-cuff decision to shave her head two weeks into quarantine. “My hair is really curly and if it’s not maintained, it’s just going to get wild. But most of [why I shaved my head] was because I wasn’t sure of what was going to happen when COVID-19 hit,” says Castelar, the head piercer for Stone & Strand and a multimedia artist living in New York City. “ I felt like, I don’t know what’s going to happen, but now is not the time to be soft.” 

Changing our hairstyle to channel a new attitude isn’t exactly novel; pop stars do it all the time (see: Miley’s mullett). But when the stakes feel higher than, say, boosting digital downloads, the effect can be particularly potent. For Castelar, losing her soft curls brought on a huge shift in energy. “Before, if people were coming to me for a piercing or even just a conversation, I felt my purpose was to bring this closeness and togetherness and light. Now, we need to be there for each other, but in order to do it, we need to be alone and that’s a kind of toughness that we didn’t need before,” she says. “I need to be stronger, and I feel like getting rid of the hair really helped that.”

I need to be stronger, and I feel like getting rid of the hair really helped that.

Janeese Castelar, Piercer In New York City

For Castelar and Evans, a spirit of disruption also fueled their home cuts. Evans says she’d rather deal with the fallout from her talent management team than ask for permission to change her hair, while Castelar cites a cultural beauty standard for women that’s so intertwined with long hair; for her, buzzing it short felt like a dare. Dismissing convention can also prompt a dopamine hit, according to Dr. Deggs-White. “Breaking the rules a little bit always feels good,” she says. “There’s a rush you get when you do something unexpected — a new pathway is forging in your old neurons in the brain.”

Whether triggered by a sense of play, a need for security, or a desire to break up the monotony of life at home, cutting our own hair is, at its core, a form of self-expression that can signal an emotional release. “It’s emotionally exhausting to bear the weight of COVID-19,” Dr. Deggs-White recognizes. “There’s something out there that we can’t even see — especially for those who don’t know someone who has been diagnosed with or who has lost a life from the virus. It’s still got its grip on us; we’re still under pressure.” 

While this pandemic has amplified the psychological drivers connected to why we cut our hair, they aren’t exactly new. “We know that during major life transitions — marriages, moves, illnesses, losses — women sometimes define these times with a change in their appearance,” Dr. Diller points out. “It’s possible that cutting hair or changing styles during COVID is a way for women to use their appearance to make a statement marking this world event.”

It’s an idea not lost on Castelar. “I feel like a lot of people are cutting their hair now as a way of saying, ‘Let’s start from here and move forward,’ because there really is no going back to the way that it was. We’re not going to go back to normal — and I don’t think we should.”

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In the final minutes of a press conference Thursday, California Governor Gavin Newsom pinpointed the state’s first known COVID-19 community-spread, previously declared in Solano County, to a nail salon. “This whole thing started in the state of California, the first community spread, in a nail salon,” Newsom said. “I’m very worried about that… right now, all of our health indicators and health directives that I received from health directors across the state put some red flags in that space.”

His explanation was meant to justify his decision to classify nail salons as higher-risk environments than schools, and therefore designate them to open during phase three of his four-phase plan to get the country’s largest economy back online — while limiting continued spread in a state that, as of Friday, had 64,532 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 2,630 deaths, according to the LA Times. But instead, the vague statement rang out as a brutal blow to the already vulnerable nail industry.

“I think it was an irresponsible and reckless thing to say because there was no meat behind it — no facts, no details, no explanation,” says Tran Wills, owner of Base Coat nail salon, which has two freestanding locations in Los Angeles (and another three locations within California-based Nordstrom stores). “I’ve been trying to call the California Department of Public Health for more information, but can’t get through. My emotions of anger and sadness are running high.”

“I agree with California taking the time and doing due diligence to protect residents and consumers, but please keep in touch with us so we have information and respond to us when we’re asking questions.”

Michelle Saunders James, Salon owner

Wills wasn’t the only one left confused and embroiled by Newsom’s statement. Nail artists, like Ashlie Johnson, took to Instagram to share their utter disbelief, while the California Healthy Nail Salon Collaborative issued a statement condemning his remarks as having “wide-reaching and detrimental impacts on Asian-American communities.” Salon owners agree. “For a business like ours, that’s already suffering and really trying to break the negative stereotypes associated with the industry, these statements are going to make it much harder to build people’s confidence around going to a nail salon again,” says Jina Javier, owner of Leo nail salon in San Diego’s North Park neighborhood.

In a press conference the next day, Newsom was asked to provide traceable evidence to back his statement. “I have a deep reverence for those entrepreneurs and people that put everything on the line… By no stretch was that intended — it’s just a factual statement — and it was not a statement to be extrapolated as an indictment, quite the contrary, of an industry I deeply respect,” he said. “We’re trying to do everything we can to accommodate the needs of all industries, including the nail salon industry, and make sure that we do it in a safe and responsible way.” At press time, the governor’s office did not provide Refinery29 with further information about how it sourced the location of the first community-spread case, and Solano Public Health officials told ABC7 that they did not release this information nor could they confirm it.

Despite his praise for those who comprise the industry, Newsom’s statement did little to clarify the basis of his original claim, comfort those impacted, or offer a deeper perspective that would help salon owners make actionable changes for patrons and staff members to feel safer in the future. “He’s still saying it’s factual, but not providing facts… The damage is done,” says Wills. 

California nail salons — which comprise nearly 20% of all salons in the country — lie at a unique crossroads of the landscape of American businesses wiped out by COVID-19. Not only is it more difficult to strategically change their business model — like offering streaming services online or to-go pickup — the nail business has also struggled with its reputation as a fast-and-cheap treatment staffed by undervalued workers to which customers often forge little connection. That means that loyal patrons are less likely to pre-book appointments, contribute to GoFundMe campaigns, or buy gift cards — all efforts that have helped some hairstylists stay afloat in the interim.

Add on the fact that the nail industry is almost fully comprised of women (81%) and immigrant workers (79%), one third of which are heads of households and self-employed, and the sudden loss of work is devastating. It’s something that worries Tuya Damdin, a 40-year-old nail tech who is eager to get back to work after her salon in Studio City, California shuttered on March 17, 2020. Though Damdin has filed for and been accepted for unemployment benefits, she has yet to receive any payment.

Damdin is concerned that the Governor’s statements pin an unhygienic reputation on the nail salon sector — something that will further negatively affect her financial health. “It has me worried because I don’t know when I’ll go back to work — probably not anytime soon — and when the salon reopens, will customers feel comfortable to come in?” she says. “Even before the virus, our everyday thing was to sanitize and clean everything and to wear gloves and masks. Retail, Uber, there are tons of businesses that don’t have the intensive hygiene practices as nail salons do.”

Newsom himself recognized the hygienic standards set by reputable nail salons. “Many have certainly informed me… many of the practices that you would otherwise expect of a modification were already in play in many of these salons, with people that had procedure masks on, were using gloves and were advancing higher levels of sanitation,” he said Thursday. But it doesn’t override the stigma that comes with a random revelation of the first community-spread COVID-19 case, nor does it speak to providing support to the industry now or down the road. 

For her part, salon owner Michelle Saunders James of Oakland’s Saunders & James Nail Care is looking for more context from the governor’s office about what transpired with California’s first community-spread case so she can heighten preventative practices past the industry’s pre-pandemic standards. “What he mentioned was generalized, therefore we don’t know how to protect ourselves or customers,” she says. “I agree with California taking the time and doing due diligence to protect residents and consumers, but please keep in touch with us so we have information and respond to us when we’re asking questions.”

James, a 30-year industry veteran, is looking into ordering plastic shields for manicure stations, weighing cloth vs. N95 masks, and researching the best gloves to use going forward. She’ll need to order new supplies and make changes ahead of a reopening, (whenever that may be) and do it on zero income, no less. “We have to make all these efforts, but we’re not supported,” she says.

On top of those obstacles, nail salon owners and workers are facing prejudices that are hitting the industry as a whole. “Most nail salons are minority owned and that’s where the problem [with the governor’s statement] lies,” explains Wills. Some 70% of salon workers in California are Vietnamese American, according to a report by the UCLA Labor Center, and 76% of workers across the nation identify as Asian American. A new poll by the Center for Public Integrity shows that 60% of Asian Americans have witnessed someone blaming Asian people for the coronavirus pandemic. “We were already getting anti-Asian racism because of coronavirus,” Wills says. “I know nail salons have been dealing with vandalism while we’ve been closed, so this fuels that fire.”

“We were already getting anti-Asian racism because of coronavirus. I know nail salons have been dealing with vandalism while we’ve been closed, so this fuels that fire.”

Tran Wills, salon owner

These outcomes are particularly painful for a community that has built the American nail salon industry to what it is today — and also helped lead the charge to provide grossly undersupplied hospital workers with protective gear. “So many nail salons donated so many supplies. They’re local heroes,” says Johnson. James and Wills donated their entire stock of gloves and masks to Los Angeles and Oakland hospitals.

In the end, salon owners aren’t calling for a swift or unsafe reopening, but rather critical information and a two-way dialogue for the wellbeing of their workers and the people they serve. “While I recognize the Governor’s clarifying statement yesterday… we remain deeply concerned about the potential economic and anti-Asian backlash that has already been inflicted upon this industry from Thursday’s remarks,“ Lisa Fu, executive director of the California Healthy Nail Salon Collaborative Owners, told Refinery29. “Workers fear that his comments are too little, too late and we welcome an open dialogue with the Governor so that he can understand more about the nuances within the nail salon industry and understand their critical needs at this time.” 

COVID-19 has been declared a global pandemic. Go to the CDC website for the latest information on symptoms, prevention, and other resources.

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In 2013, the beauty industry could have never anticipated the meteoric rise of a then-newcomer skin-care brand called The Ordinary. However, with minimalist, flatlay-friendly packaging and too-good-to-be-true prices, it's no surprise that the products quickly took off among beauty novices and die-hards alike — and the rest is history.

However, the brand's many successes weren't without behind-the-scenes controversy. Following the tragic news of co-founder Brandon Truaxe's death in 2019, the brand has worked on returning to its roots with a renewed focus on developing accessibly-priced, highly innovative products for Deciem's global fan base that now span skin care, makeup, and hair care.

In recent years, the direct-to-consumer brand has debuted at a handful of major retailers, including Sephora, Ulta Beauty, and UK-based Lookfantastic, so it's officially never been easier to restock your favorite wallet-friendly products.

With many of us spending more time at home (and perhaps rediscovering the feel-good effect of taking care of our skin), we're taking a moment to reacquaint ourselves with the brand's suite of products. And to help with this handy guide, we've sought the input of cosmetic chemist and The Beauty Brains co-founder Randy Schueller, as well as Miami-based dermatologist S. Manjula Jegasothy, MD. Keep reading for a comprehensive breakdown of what’s inside those cute little bottles and squeezy tubes, ahead.

At Refinery29, we’re here to help you navigate this overwhelming world of stuff. All of our market picks are independently selected and curated by the editorial team. If you buy something we link to on our site, Refinery29 may earn commission.

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This past February, like so many others in her 25 years as a freelance makeup artist, Rachel Goodwin boarded a plane from LAX to Paris with a 50-pound bag of makeup and a calendar full of Fashion Week gigs. “By the time I got there, it was like the whole world had changed,” she tells Refinery29. “The Louvre was being shut down, my clients were not going to the shows, and I was getting on a plane to come home because of COVID,” she says. “My world has not been the same since.” 

Like many in service-based industries — which make up 25% of the U.S. work force and employ more women than men — Hollywood’s leading makeup artists, hairstylists, and nail professionals have become unemployed virtually overnight as a result of the pandemic. Freelance celebrity hair colorist Cassondra Kaeding, who had just started working with Kylie Jenner, says her entire calendar was wiped clean in an instant. “If our clients aren’t working, we’re not working,” Kaeding says. Hairstylist Jenny Cho had just wrapped an in-salon training in London, worked with Lucy Boynton for the Chloé show during Paris Fashion Week, and finished an ad campaign with Ana de Armas before making it out of Spain right as travel advisories were being put into place. “I literally got home in the nick of time,” she says. 

Whether Kylie has fresh highlights or a glittery Fashion Week party gets cancelled might seem trivial in a time of international crisis — especially when it’s easy to confuse the lifestyles of glam squads with those of the celebrities they serve. But outside of the flawless last looks and BTS images they post on Instagram, there’s a lot to the job we don’t see. “What’s shown on social media is definitely curated,” Cho says. What’s not pictured: a schedule that can change on a whim, 4 a.m. call times, jet lag, and long days away from family — all for less compensation than one might imagine. “I love my job,” Cho says. “But it’s not as easy and as glamorous as people may think.”

The Real Cost Of Celebrity Beauty

The truth is, despite its glossy veneer, the job of a Hollywood beauty pro is closer to that of a gig worker: If there’s no one to serve, there’s no work — and no job security, either. “No matter how fabulous the venue, the client, or the event, freelance is freelance and that means you’re unemployed until you’re employed,” says makeup artist Tasha Reiko Brown, whose clients include Logan Browning and Tracee Ellis Ross.

Freelance beauty pros are typically paid between 30 to 90 days after completing a job and in one lump sum from which they draw their own salary after paying out-of-pocket for health, liability, and disability insurance, retirement, 401K contributions, agency fees, assistant fees, taxes, and supplies like foundation, brushes, and hairspray. “When people hear our rates, what they don’t understand is that freelance artists are on our own. So what we make at the end of the day is not what it sounds like,” Goodwin says. “There’s a misnomer that it’s a big glamorous career, and it is, but it’s also feast or famine. We’re very vulnerable because we don’t get a normal paycheck. There are people who won’t be able to pay their rent in this unpredictable climate.”

As both Goodwin and makeup artist Fiona Stiles point out, the COVID-19 outbreak has exposed other cracks in their sector of the industry. “Makeup artists and hairstylists in the film industry are more protected because they have a union,” says Goodwin, who works with actors like Emma Stone and January Jones. “Our part of the business has never had it and I’ve always wanted there to be one, but there’s just never enough momentum, seemingly, for people to get behind it.”

Even before COVID-19 put an abrupt end to the movie premieres, photoshoots, press junkets, and galas that kept Hollywood’s glam teams earning a steady income, many artists in the industry had already taken financial hits with a changing landscape. In the 2008 financial crisis, rates were slashed to a quarter of what they once were and have never fully recovered, according to Goodwin. Meanwhile, a surge of young talent who are looking to break into the industry and willing to work for less has congested the field and stymied rates. “There are artists who will fly themselves to LA or to Paris during Fashion Week or to France for Cannes to make themselves available wherever the clients are going,” notes freelance hairstylist Lacy Redway, whose clients include Tessa Thompson and Zazie Beetz.

It’s a precedent that can trickle up to seasoned pros, who are expected to occasionally pay out of pocket to keep a client on their books. “Since the 2008 economic disaster, studios have cut budgets so low that they sometimes ask us to pay for travel ourselves or to crash at a friend’s house like we’re 19 years old, but I try not to do that,” Cho says. Collecting frequent flyer miles can help lift the burden, but that doesn’t always cover it. Sometimes, celebrity clients split the difference.

Financial Worry Despite Fiscal Responsibility

In some ways, the fluid and unstable nature of freelance artistry in beauty has better prepared veteran artists and stylists for the type of sudden fallout that many gig economy workers are facing due to the coronavirus. All the pros we talked to for this story have stacked savings to draw from while they’re out of work — in this case, because of a pandemic. “When I first got into this business, I was told to save my money and be able to position myself to where I had a six-month fund because you want to ride out times when your loyal clients aren’t working. Even without COVID, you can have a dry spell, so you have to be the kind of person who thinks ahead and doesn’t live beyond your means,” Goodwin says.

A healthy war chest built to cover a few months of expenses can help ease the pressure of sudden job loss, but the unpredictable nature of the pandemic is worrying even the most prepared of professionals. “It’s an emotional rollercoaster,” says Redway about her concerns brought on by the shutdown. “It leaves artists and creatives in such an uncertain place because we don’t know when we’re going to be able to go back to work. We work in such an intimate way with talent — we’re touching their faces, hair, and nails constantly. After the ban is lifted, when will people be comfortable with having other people touching them in that way?”

In the meantime, there is something of a life raft being thrown to freelance artists and other gig workers, who are now able to apply for unemployment benefits through the CARES Act. Some brands, including SuperGreat, are paying makeup artists their day rate to create online tutorials. Other organizations, like the Professional Beauty Association, are trying to rally grassroots financial relief efforts to support artists.

But it’s not enough, and many are still left waiting and wondering what the future will hold. “I’m definitely worried about what’s going to happen,” notes Cho, who had just closed escrow on a new home when the shutdown hit and has a family to support. “I applied for unemployment and am waiting for it to show up. It’s not a lot, but it’s something.” For her part, makeup artist Emily Cheng is looking into enrolling as well.

It’s not just those with dependents who face additional challenges to making ends meet at a time when work has flatlined. As Goodwin acknowledges, freelance artists still establishing themselves in their careers might not have had the privilege of stacking an emergency fund. “The artists I feel bad for right now are the ones who are just starting because they haven’t been able to build up and establish themselves,” she says. “If I was two or three years in, this could be a roadblock I may not be able to get by.” 

The Instagram Economy

Queenie Nguyen is an LA-based nail stylist who works with both private and celebrity clients. Last year, after more than 10 years in the salon sector, she made the switch to working with talent. Since then, she has impressively grown her portfolio, not only by gaining agency representation and working with stars like Halsey and Soirse Ronan, but also by building a modest following on Instagram. Though she says she has some savings to draw from, she couldn’t have prepared for the sudden and massive fallout from the coronavirus. The nail stylist is working to drum up brand partnerships on Instagram. But she also recently signed up to be a Postmates delivery driver a few times a week in order to cover the cost of her grocery bills.

Because the app allows her to pick her shifts, she’s able to prioritize nail-focused opportunities as they come up. “If I have a collaboration with a brand or a set Instagram Live, then I can make sure to be there for that,” she says. She’s already partnered with a beauty brand on a DIY video since the shutdown and is working to do more. “I don’t really make a lot of money from this. It’s just for the exposure, so that when this is over, I’ll have more work,” she says.

Kaeding, who splits her time between working with celebrity clients and in a salon, has found her own unexpected revenue stream in quarantine. Right when her salon was closing, the colorist made moves to stock up on supplies. “I thought, Maybe I can do something for my clients,” she says. She landed on making at-home hair color kits to help clients keep up their color while self isolating. 

The endeavor has earned her a little extra cash, and connected her more closely with her regulars as well as new clients from all over the country. “It broadens my horizons and it’s cool to see people so happy and excited when they’re able to do color themselves,” she says. “Before, I worked so many hours that I was never able to brainstorm and come up with ideas. But this has got my wheels turning. Maybe this is something that I can continue to do later down the road for people who can’t come to me.” In addition to mixing $110 custom-color kits for customers on Instagram, Kaeding is working on creating a website to make ordering more seamless.

Nguyen and Kaeding aren’t the only artists taking to Instagram to share their skills. Despite increasingly dire circumstances, there’s never been a better time to get beauty advice straight from Hollywood pros who are typically too slammed with their day jobs to engage online. Makeup artist Reiko Brown has partnered with brands like BeautyBlender and Kevyn Aucoin for tutorials and Q+As. “It’s keeping me creative,” she says. “There’s times that I can’t do something like this because we have back-to-back press junkets and I don’t have time to do a how-to or beauty breakdown. Now I have time. I’m going more in depth and sharing a lot of knowledge. That feels good, and the response has been amazing.”

For artists who have no other subject to work on, this unique time is pushing their skills in new directions. “Personally, I’ve never wanted to be in front of the camera, but it’s not like I have anyone else to do makeup on, and I miss it so much that this has encouraged me to think about getting a little more personal and showing my personality off a little bit,” says makeup artist Emily Cheng, who works with Yara Shahidi, Laura Harrier and Julia Garner. 

Other artists are using this time to focus on content to deepen connections in the beauty community and inspire their followers. As co-founder of the forthcoming Makeup Museum, Goodwin is working to create online content around its #generationsofbeauty campaign. On her own platform, she’s creating an IGTV series called “State of the Art” for burgeoning industry pros. Redway is also offering her services wherever they’re needed. “At the beginning of this, I started to question whether or not I should post on social media because I was starting to feel like what I did wasn’t as valuable and important as a nurse, a doctor, or other people on the front lines,” Redway says. “People are suffering or losing family members and don’t know how they’re going to pay their next bill. If me showing them how to do an updo or twist-out at home is beneficial to them, then I’m happy to get on that Zoom call and do it for free.”

Instagram and brand sponsorships can help provide some income for artists, but they’re typically reserved for those with an established social media presence, which can take years to build. Let’s not forget that artists are also just doing their best to survive during a traumatic time. Hang Nguyen, a nail stylist who works with Jennifer Garner and Emma Roberts, is expecting her third child any day. Though she does have some income thanks to collaborations with nail companies, she’s most concerned with staying healthy. Cho is thinking about creating her dream product line in between unpacking boxes in her new home and homeschooling her four-year-old kid. Like countless other working women, moms like Goodwin, Redway, and Stiles are suddenly taking on the role of primary educator.

“For parents, you’re suddenly a chef and full-time teacher and parent. I have zero time. I’m trying to figure out how to do second grade math and still run Reed Clarke,” Stiles says of her ecommerce beauty site. “When am I going to have time to do a YouTube video? This is not a creative moment for a lot of us. It’s just a lot of extra doing.”

From Hands-On To Hands-Off

No matter how slammed Stiles is with her quadrupled workload, she can’t help but think about how the process of executing a red-carpet look is going to change moving forward. The veteran artist has been hyper vigilant about sanitation and preventing contamination since day one. She washes her hands, uses sanitizer constantly, and deep cleans her tools after every use.

But like other celebrated makeup artists in the business, Stiles, who works with Zoey Deutch and Gabrielle Union, typically uses her fingers to tap and blend cream blushes, lipsticks, and other makeup products onto her clients’ skin. “My fingers are a big part of my toolkit. I mix colors on the back of my hand to get a custom lipstick shade or to see what the chemical reaction of a product on the skin will be before I put it on someone. What used to be an asset — my hands, my fingers — are slightly weaponized,” she says.

Adjustments will have to be made, she says. “Moving forward I’ll have to figure out how to mix colors and products in a way that doesn’t include contact with my skin. It’s going to be interesting to pick an intuitive part of doing makeup and adjust it to a more systematic way of touching a product.”

Celebrity nail stylists may already wear protective gloves and masks, but Nguyen thinks pros will have to rethink how certain products, like dip powders, are used. Redway pictures a scenario in which every member of a glam team wears masks while working. She’s also considering whether gloves will need to be worn when touching the scalp while braiding hair. How will they not rip or cause static cling? “Someone may have to create a glove that feels like human touch,” she says.

It’s hard to imagine when Hollywood glam teams will get back to work, much less how. “Some people have clients who only do performances, and we know we’re not going to be in packed amphitheaters anytime soon. With movies, I don’t know what press junkets will look like moving forward,” Reiko Brown says. “I do know the dust will settle and nothing will go back to normal. We’ll have a new normal, but the industry will hold. We’ll adapt to survive.”

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In Ohio and Minnesota, the mandate came down on Wednesday, March 18: Nail salons and other businesses that offer “non-essential personal services” were ordered to temporarily close up shop to slow the transmission of COVID-19. The order followed on the heels of California’s Bay Area, which had already begun practicing shelter in place. By Friday, March 20, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Alaska, and Los Angeles County (the last of which accounts for five percent of the country’s nail salons) had all required spas and salons to close. Saturday, Michigan followed suit. 

As quickly as the coronavirus spreads in the U.S., so will the closures of the country’s some 24,000 nail salons, bringing an entire industry to its knees. It’s something that’s taken the estimated 126,300 to 212,519 certified nail salon workers in the U.S. (which 2018 California and New York state board data suggests only reflects 30-47% of the workforce) completely off guard. For an industry that is almost fully comprised of women (81%) and immigrant workers (79%), one third of which are heads of households and self-employed, the effects are devastating. But behind the scenes, the effects of the pandemic began to show a month earlier.

“We first felt the impact of the virus through our supply chain,” says Kristin Gyimah, a nail tech and owner of Dime Nails LA. “Our large Chinese and Korean-owned suppliers were not getting shipments of their supplies from China and supplies were running low. Everyone was scrambling to get their barbicide, gloves, masks, nail files — everything they could.” Just a few days later, Gyimah saw a drastic drop in business. “As a result, we started telling the nail artists this is going to hit us and by March 3, we started seeing the books drop off. Phones were completely quiet and we were just kind of left hoping and waiting to see what would happen.”

Meanwhile, in another mom-and-pop salon in Queens, New York, 53 year-old manicurist Morshada Begam began to see a significant slump in business as well. “Three weeks ago, it started to get really slow,” she told Refinery29 on Friday. “We were just sitting with no customers. People were scared to come in.” Begam, who immigrated to New York City from Bangladesh in 1998, decided then to give up her part-time night shifts — not because she was losing the $75 or so in daily wages and tips, but because she was concerned about the safety of her family. “I have my mom home, who is 83 years old, and I take care of her. I take the subway and the bus to go to work. She’s had diabetes and asthma and I didn’t want to make her sick,” she says.

Giving up her shifts at the salon wasn’t easy — in order to keep her family afloat, Begam now relies solely on the monthly stipend she earns as a primary caregiver for her mother. Because she’s technically paid for her day job, she is ineligible for unemployment benefits and has been forced to use credit to get by. “I’m worried,” Begam says. “The work I do with my mom is not enough [to support us]. I’m not so young, so it’s not easy for me to find a job. I’m worried about how I’m going to meet expenses. I have to use my credit card now and it’s going to be very hard for me to pay for everything back. I’m worried, but I have no choice. My mom is my first priority.”

By March 8, as the virus’s epicenter had moved from China to Iran and Italy (where 60 million residents were placed on lockdown), bigger players in the nail industry started weighing the costs and benefits of providing such an intimate service. MiniLuxe, which operates salons in four states, has built its reputation as the place to get an ultra-sanitary mani/pedi — thanks to a heightened hygiene protocol enhanced by in-house sterilization rooms. If you could get a worry-free manicure anywhere, it would be at one of its 24 locations. 

But as the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic on March 11, and as a few of MiniLuxe’s employees and customers began to voice discomfort about coming into the studios, the company’s top brass met to put its own plan into place. “We put plans A, B, and C together, with the worst case scenario being if someone came into our studios after having come into contact with coronavirus, then we would shut it down and get it cleaned,” says Donna Charloff, services director for the brand. “There was no plan to close — that was never on our radar.” 

But just a few days later, the writing was on the wall: MiniLuxe announced on Monday, March 16, that it would temporarily shut all of its doors the following morning — ahead of state-issued mandates. By the end of the week, some 550 nail designers and editors were furloughed. “It was just an agonizing decision, honestly. Our founder and team were trying to figure out anything to do other than close and we knew it had to happen,” Charloff says. “As safe as we are, as hygienic as we are, our employees and clients may still have been at risk, which is why we closed. It was the right thing to do. There’s just no way to do it safely given the guidelines that everyone’s been given.”

At Dime Nails LA, Gyimah was grappling with the same impossible decision: As the virus spread, she became more and more concerned about the safety of her clients and employees, as well as the nail techs’ livelihoods should she choose to shutter. (As a group, they had selected to work on a commission basis in January, when California’s controversial AB5, a bill intended to reclassify gig workers as employees, was enacted.) By the second week of March, her business was serving about half of the clients it might otherwise. New customers were scarce. Still, regular clients continued to come in. “I was able to keep all the girls on staff and I know that hasn’t been the situation for a lot of independent, suite-run technicians, or hourly technicians. My staff was still able to pull in a decent wage,” Gyimah says.

In fact, as leaked federal documents suggested the pandemic could last 18 months or longer, Gyimah saw a boom in business as other salons began to close their doors. “People weren’t trying to get unicorn chrome nails,” she says. “It was more a matter of people worried about in-growns they would get after a month of no pedicures, or needing to get acrylics, extensions, or gels removed.” 

“There’s no social distancing with nails.”

Kristin Gyimah, owner of Dime Nails LA

At first, Gyimah limited the number of people in the salon to 10 at a time, but it was beginning to become clear that it wouldn’t be enough to protect her employees and customers. “There’s no social distancing with nails,” she says. 

When opening her shop on Monday and Tuesday of last week, she noticed people on the street giving her the side eye. “It was starting to get weird with clients,” she says. “People were scared. Everyone was wearing masks and gloves to protect themselves.” Followers on Instagram also urged her to close. “I was torn. I know a lot of my techs depend solely on this income to feed their families. A lot of them are single mothers who have kids or have grandparents or parents that they take care of and it was hard because our books were full and we could easily have stayed open Thursday so they could make a little more cash,” she says. Finally, despite the surge in business, Gyimah decided to close the shop just ahead of L.A.’s mandate. The following day, 23 calls for appointments went to voicemail. 

Gyimah cut her employees checks on Thursday, just as they were furloughed. Miniluxe, which provides its nail designers and editors with paid time off, also immediately issued checks (including PTO balances) as well as information on how to apply for unemployment benefits.

Beyond The Salon

As rapidly as the infrastructure of nail salons collapsed, so did the business of styling nails for advertising campaigns, editorial shoots, and red carpet events. Mazz Hanna, CEO of Nailing Hollywood, a boutique agency that solely represents nail stylists, started to see a sharp decline in business after March 9. “Shoot after shoot was getting deleted off of our calendar. It was crazy. By March 13, we literally had no jobs on the calendar at all. Not now and not for the future. Nothing.” Even more distressing, the cancellations came during the agency’s busiest time of the year “March through May is when companies are starting to get their fall fashion content together,” Hanna says. “Last year at the end of March, we had shoots nearly every single day.” 

Queenie Nguyen is one Nailing Hollywood artist who works with stars like Halsey and Saoirse Ronan. The evaporation of her on-set and red carpet work dovetailed with a completed drop in private client services. “Everything hit hard beginning last Sunday [March 15],” she says. “But even the week before that, a lot of clients were asking to reschedule, which I understand. As of this week, everything has been completely canceled.” Nguyen is working with the Nailing Hollywood team on a pivot: reaching out to companies to offer sponsored content for social media. “Obviously, this is a time where content is something people are really engaging with — even people who normally don’t do it,” her agent, Hanna, says. 

“People think I have a glamorous life. But they don’t really understand that we’re also living paycheck-to-paycheck, too.”

Queenie Nguyen, celebrity Nail Artist

The sudden erasure of Nguyen’s income has sent her in a spiral of different emotions. “I went from confused to sad to denial and back to sad — it’s like the stages of grief,” she says. “But now I’m optimistic. Instead of sitting here thinking the world’s going to end, I’m thinking ‘Okay what can I do for myself and how can I help other people?’ For now, staying home is helping other people.” She has received a couple of requests for house calls, which could throw a little cash in her pocket, but the nail artist knows it isn’t worth the risk of possible spread or exposure — especially when nurses and doctors are on the front lines. As of yesterday, Nguyen starting doing delivery work through Postmates to make ends meet and is attempting to file for unemployment, although she says the site crashed every time she’s tried to get an application going.

“People think I have a glamorous life,” Nguyen says in reference to her high-profile work. “But they don’t really understand that we’re also living paycheck-to-paycheck, too.”

How To Help

The nail industry’s rapid collapse is unprecedented. With hundreds of thousands of manicurists and pedicurists facing furlough and layoffs (some with no benefits or eligibility for unemployment), there’s never been a more crucial time to support your local salon or nail pro.

Some independent nail shop owners are thinking creatively to give employees a cushion in the upcoming weeks. Cute Nail Studio in Austin is paying out two weeks sick leave, earmarking all profits from online sales through April 20 (which includes accessories, clothing, jewelry and nail products) for employees, as well as giving a small cash bonus to its team. Owner Jason Darling has also set up a GoFundMe page to provide his 22 employees with financial relief, in addition to promoting employee-made press-ons through the salon’s Instagram page.

For its part, MiniLuxe just launched its MiniLuxe Resiliency Fund, which will pool half of all nail polish sales and a portion of gift certificate sales in order to support the brand’s furloughed employees. “We’ve had an outpouring of love and support already from some of our clients asking how they can support our nail designers,” notes Carolyn Monaghan, operations project manager at the company. To that end, the brand will help facilitate Venmo transactions so customers can also donate directly to the nail artists they patron most. 

Dime Nails LA’s Gyimah is also providing clients with her nail techs’ individual Venmo accounts upon request. It’s a transparent way of making sure funds are appropriated properly, particularly as consumers question how salons are leveraging community support.

But that’s not to say that the salons themselves won’t need help. As Gyimah notes, “We have no revenue right now so, depending on the situation, business owners are going to be up against a ton of backlogged electricity, gas, rent bills, and whatever else is coming.” She notes that gift cards can help but, more than anything, she wants her clients to shop responsibly in the face of disaster capitalism. “I’m very conscious of the fact that people are losing their jobs left and right and we don’t know how long this thing will last,” she says. “Dear, God, don’t buy a $50 gift card if that means you can’t get groceries in two weeks.” 

For those who are also financially impacted by COVID-19, or uncertain of their own job security in the coming weeks and months, there are other ways to support your local salon without purchasing products or gift cards. To influence change on a federal level, you can sign this petition, which calls for the expansion of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act so that all impacted workers (including contract workers who can’t work off site) will be eligible for aid. If you live in a state in which citizens are pushing for an expansion of unemployment benefits for freelance and gig workers, you can help advocate on behalf of your nail tech. “We desperately need help from our local and federal government to take care of our own,” notes Darling. Staying in touch via Instagram and helping to build the brand’s connection with your community is also valuable, Gyimah notes. Yes, likes, comments, and shares can actually make a difference.

While many corner nail salons may not have the resources to re-open after the pandemic, the truth is, no one knows what the future holds. As of March 24, the World Health Organization has warned that the U.S. could become the new coronavirus epicenter. Still, MiniLuxe’s Charloff is hopeful that the industry will rebound, thanks in large part to the countless nail pros who make up the heartbeat behind it. “A lot of these technicians are going to be really resilient and figure out a way because they’re such hard workers,” she says. “It’s in their core to hustle.”

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