Nail Salons Statewide Reopening Announcement
Since 1999, the Professional Beauty Federation of California has striven to give voice to California’s 620,000 hair/skin/nails licensed professionals and 52,000 licensed barbering/beauty establishments. In recent months, we have been very active in trying to get our so-called “non-essential” but safe businesses back in operation, including a federal lawsuit filed against Governor Newsom on May 12 and a concerted #OpenSalonsNow campaign.
We have been frustrated by this Administration’s lack of transparency, lack of curiosity to reach out to industry experts and their own state regulatory board. There’s been no legislative deliberations, no public hearings. No regulatory adoption process. And no acknowledgement of the high standards of licensure set by our State Board of Barbering & Cosmetology.
While we welcome today’s announcement to reopen nail salons by Dr. Gahly, it was yet another act of fiat that leaves our skin care professionals out in the cold — or rather California’s record heat and smoke! 95% of these Estheticians are women, as are their spa establishment owners, the quintessential small businesses upon which our state’s economy is so dependent. What “data and science” justify dividing our industry into such a caste system, with women in our industry remaining at the bottom of the reopening calculus, now going on 7 months?
And continuing to give County health officers ultimate veto over our STATE licensed industry is unworkable, given those municipal bureaucrats haven’t regulated our industry since 1927! How many of them will heed Dr. Gahly’s “green light” for nail salons, and how long will their local deliberations take before they allow these safe salons to return indoors?
They are ignorant of the State Board approved education and training that all of our hair/skin/nails professionals complete before passing the State Board licensing exam, all of which is based on consumer safety. Our licensed technicians know how to avoid cross-contamination and maximize disinfection … that’s what they’ve been trained and licensed to do! Moreover, our licensed establishments have invested considerable resources into PPE and other COVID-compliant safety protocols, which the CDC publicly endorsed back in July.
Stop dividing our industry into have’s and have-not’s. Treat all hair/skin/nails professionals with the respect their state license deserves. We call upon Governor Newsom and all 58 County Health officers to #OpenSalonsNow … all of them!
Disrespect Leads to Delicensure!
Which industry sectors were the last to reopen during the recent nationwide lockdowns? Hint: It wasn’t the multinational retail corporations, the grocers and alcohol outlets, the automobile sales/repair facilities, the home improvement stores or the dental offices. It was the personal service sectors — hair/skin/nail shops, gyms, tattoo and massage …
Governor Capitulates … again … sort of!
Here is the PBFC’s Public Statement in response to Governor Newsom’s convoluted tiered schema he just rolled out, placing 87% of our nail/skin establishments OUTSIDE, while reopening INDOOR hair/barbershops statewide (evidently without capacity limits): Since 1999, the Professional Beauty Federation of California has striven to give voice to …
San Francisco Targets OpenSafe Leader!
The City and County of San Francisco is targeting the leader of the OpenSafeCalifornia movement! They aren’t going after anyone else, which means if we can fight them back, here, we can protect everyone’s establishments in the City By The Bay. This is what is happening to Shay in real …
Salons/Shops/Spas Teetering on Insolvency
Another month, another column focusing on the invisible enemy that at least here in California continues to lay waste to our economy, our industry and our livelihoods. Well, to be more precise, COVID is wreaking havoc in terms of contagion spread here in the Golden State, but our state and …
Meet The Man Behind The Curtain
Since we brought Governor Newsom to court and kicked off the #OpenSalonsNow campaign, the PBFC has broken through the noise, received unparalleled media coverage, and reached the collective consciousness of our half-million active, licensed professionals … in a way we have never been able to penetrate in our association’s 20 …
PBFC Statement Re: Outside Services
The Professional Beauty Federation of California is a 501 (c)(6) nonprofit trade association that seeks to give voice to California’s 621,000 hair/skin/nails licensed professionals, as well the over 53,000 licensed barbering/beauty establishments. We have been very active in trying to get our so-called “non-essential” businesses back in operation since May, …
Who’s Speaking Up For You?
In the early days of the COVID threat, our licensed professionals embraced federal and state calls for lockdowns to “flatten the contagion curve” so as to “not overwhelm our hospitals” and to keep our clients and co-workers safe. But as the days, weeks and months progressed, and as not a …
Timeline of Governor Newsom’s Capitulation
Given there are some in our industry who haven’t been following the work of the PBFC (in pressuring Governor Newsom to #OpenSalonsNow via a federal court lawsuit and concerted media campaign), we thought it would be helpful to provide a brief timeline of our work on behalf of all 620,000 …
PBFC Stood Up for Salon/Barbershop Professionals
When Governor Newsom announced on April 28 — nearly two months into the lockdown — that salons and beauty colleges would remain shut additional “months not weeks”, the PBFC jumped into action. We immediately sent his Cabinet Secretary a letter, which precipitated an April 29 hour and-a-half phone conference (which …
