Portsmouth hair salon Hardysalon says it’s seen an influx of bookings as people prepare to look their best for lockdown-free summer

The team at Hardysalon, in Lord Montgomery Way in Southsea had over 300 booking enquiries in the week following the announcement by prime Minister, Boris Johnson, that ‘freedom day’ would go ahead and restrictions would end.

Co-owner Rachel Hardy said that most of the enquiries and bookings have come from brides who were eagerly awaiting the announcement to see if their weddings could go ahead, as well as ladies heading out to events such as Goodwood, Victorious Festival and generally going out to socialise restriction-free.

She said she has been overwhelmed with the increase in bookings and is excited to see the salon get back to normal.

She said: ‘We couldn’t believe how many people were booking in after the announcement. Now restrictions are over people are obviously heading out to more events, weddings, proms graduations etcetera.

‘One of the fundamentals of Hardysalon is that it’s about the whole experience and with the restrictions in place we felt like we were unable to fully deliver that to our clients and were just providing a service rather than a whole experience.

‘Even small things such as being able to give someone a magazine while their colour develops and not having to wear a mask for three hours makes such a difference. Hopefully this new chapter we’re going into will allow us to offer the full experience.’

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Although social distancing and masks are no longer a legal requirement, Rachel, along with co-owner Yasmin Leigh and the team, will keep certain former guidelines in place to protect clients and staff as much as they can.

Yasmin said: ‘Keeping safe is still a massive priority for us.

‘A lot of salons are keeping the masks in place for the staff and client, but as we can’t enforce it on our staff, we’re putting the decision in the clients’ hands and allowing them to make the choice themselves.

‘If the client wants us to wear a mask we happily will and will of course continue with deep cleaning, sanitising, Covid consultation forms and track and trace.’

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