“Hair is a pretty recession-proof career,” says Laura Anderson, owner of Notch Collective, a salon in West Asheville. In hard times, such as the 2008 recession, clients may have stretched out their visits, but appointments continued despite economic hardship, she notes.
With COVID-19, Anderson continues, everything has changed. As a business owner, Anderson voluntarily closed her salon on March 16, a week and a half before Buncombe County’s stay home, stay safe mandate went into effect.
“We’d always been really good about washing our hands between clients and making sure that things were clean, but it’s a whole other level when it comes to needing to wipe everything down with Barbicide or alcohol,” she explains. “You become hyperaware of anyone with a cough.”
Today, Anderson remains in isolation with her fiancé and their dog, Heidi, inside their Marshall home. Though previously accustomed to seeing up to 10 clients a day, Anderson says she has adjusted well. “I’m a pretty extroverted introvert,” she explains. “I have very limited interactions with others when I’m not working.”
Still, she hasn’t completely cut herself off from clients. Many, she reveals, still text her. Some have inquired about home visits, a service Anderson cannot and will not provide. As a state certified cosmologist, she explains, “It would cost me my license and livelihood if I were to be caught doing that.”
Others have reached out to inquire about her well-being, asking if they could pay for an appointment in advance or purchase a gift card. And on a handful of occasions, Anderson adds with a laugh, “I’ve had to talk a few [clients] off of a ledge to keep them from purchasing box color.”
Without knowing when her business might reopen, Anderson spends part of her days researching loans and other financial assistance programs. “I don’t want to take on any more debt and I’m willing to do what I can to make it work without doing so, but I also have to safeguard the business because we have seven people whose livelihoods depend on us reopening our doors.”
Otherwise, the stylist and business owner says she is adapting to the new reality in a number of ways. She and her fiancé have become more conscious about food waste. They’re also trying to stay informed while reducing their stress.
“I definitely try to limit how much time I spend on social media,” Anderson says. “I want to find that balance of being fully aware and not being so weighed down by it all that you feel like there’s no hope.”
This article is part of COVID Conversations, a series of short features based on interviews with members of our community during the coronavirus pandemic in Western North Carolina. If you or someone you know has a unique story you think should be featured in a future issue of Xpress, please let us know at news@mountainx.com.
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