Mala McAlpin QLD beauty and aesthetics returned back to work over the weekend – here’s how it went.
Last week was an incredibly exciting time for beauty and aesthetics in Queensland, as the green light was given to reopen as of May 15, providing services including facials, exfoliations and wraps, nail services, lash services, makeup services hair removal (including waxing, laser, tweezer and threading), cosmetic injections and therapeutic massage.
Needless to say, there will be no going back to the way we were for a long time to come, and there will be some huge adjustments to get used to in the meantime. On top of all this, most businesses have been racking up enormous waitlists of eager clients over the past several weeks, and with firm social distancing restrictions in place, it’s a lot to get through. We chatted to several clinics that have now reopened for business about how they’re handling it all.
Ella Baché Pacific Fair
My team and I were thrilled to be back in the salon doing what we love most! After 7 long weeks we were ready to be back and we knew we had all the safety measures in place to protect our staff and clients. Clients were extremely happy to see us, our industry has certainly been missed during this time. All were very supportive of new initiatives and respectful towards each other and our team. It actually feels very much the same, only we now have extra safety measures and regulations to enforce. It’s brought back some normality to our lives and it really is wonderful to be open again. – Katie Wolfenden, Owner
Skin Spirit Day Spa
Stepping forward into the unknown of restrictions easing and our doors re-opening with a limited menu permitted for stage one, we were actually thrilled to find the amazing support from our loyal customers with bookings flowing in! Even customers that haven’t visited in a while telling us their time in isolation helped them realise how much they valued their visit to us for self-care time and skin treatment. We are definitely feeling the love right now! I believe the time out has assisted people to review so much of their lives and hopefully view the value of their health and well-being in a new light. – Michelle Vasiliou, Owner
Ultimate Skin & Body Clinic, Ashmore
Prior to opening our doors to all our services on Saturday, we implemented a strict a COVID-19 safety plan to ensure the safety of our staff and clients with new additional measures for cleaning and sanitation in addition to our usual procedures. We have a mandatory form that our clients must complete prior to arrival to collect information relating to COVID-19 (such as whether you have recently traveled). Our client base has been visiting us for over 22 years, so they already know and appreciate the large waiting room in our clinic, also located in a standalone medical precinct rather than a big shopping centre. These features have definitely been attractive for clients who are conscious of social distancing and avoiding crowds whilst obtaining their skin and injectable treatments.
The COVID-19 restrictions have allowed us the time to implement some new practices into our business to give our clients more options when it comes to maintaining their regimes, including click and collect skincare ordering, a new online booking system and treatment member subscriptions. Our team has also used the time away from the clinic to boost their knowledge and education in areas of dermal science and treatment protocols. It was really important for us to stay in touch with our clients so we started an RSVP waitlist and stayed active online and through personal phone calls. Between our RSVP waitlist, new clients and our existing rescheduled clients, we had a very successful reopening and were completely booked out. We anticipate all of our services, especially injectable services as many clients are overdue for re-treatment and clients whose treatment plans were disrupted, to be in high demand over the coming weeks. – Katharine Kalic, Executive Assistant
MBODY Aesthetics
The QLD state government gave the formal go ahead for us to re-open the clinic with injecting services only by qualified health practitioners (of course) on Tuesday 5th of May. We however chose to remain closed and wait an extra week, reopening on Monday 11th May. We are extremely fortunate to have such an amazing clientele, who have all been so supportive during the time we were closed, so this certainly helped us to reopen. I can categorically say that the feeling we have had since reopening, has been that of absolute gratitude and love. I don’t think we as people appreciate how important self care really does play such a significant part in our lives. As we are a medi-clinic, we are already focused on a sterile/hygienic environment, and practice the necessary measures to keep peoples’ safety at the forefront. – Sharni Mancell, Owner
Ella Baché Cairns
Opening my salon on Saturday morning was refreshing, the excitement I had bursting through my body was as the day I first opened the door to my salon: the excitement, the rush, the “do I have everything in place and ready?” feeling was at an all time high. We are super passionate about skin health, skin empowerment and assisting our local community in what we have to offer. The most important part of Ella Baché Cairns is the level of highly trained skin experts that we have hired at our salon, the joy they bring me each and every day is outstanding and it was extremely uplifting to be back with such beautiful, passionate and bright work colleagues again.
We have an outstanding loyal clientele base and the happiness and delight that was filled within our salon on Saturday was the same feeling we get throughout the salon on Christmas Eve, believe it or not! It was ecstatic. Of course, having restrictions in place, there were no welcome hugs, but a lot of big welcome smiles!
If I’m 100% honest I don’t feel there is any difference (than before closing down) as we run the clinic with prestige protocols, our team is highly trained to follow the highest level of hygiene practices. We have always followed our salon cleaning procedures as if it were that of a hospital, even using the same brand of cleaning materials and products along with ensuring our clients data is checked and updated upon every visit to our salon, while always booking time after every client to do a full room strip and disinfect before our next client enters. So for me, we have had to implement very little to be COVID-19 ready as we run our salon with the same protocols anyway. – Danielle O’Carroll, Owner
To every clinic recently reopened, and to all of those patiently awaiting their turn, we wish you the best of luck, good health, and an abundance of happy clients!
