How the beauty industry was affected by the Coronavirus

Makeup artists, hairstylists, nail artists, and other professionals reveal how COVID-19 affected the beauty business.

- LEAH PRINZIVALLI

When I last spoke to Miss Pop, the beloved nail artist behind dozens of magazine photoshoots and runway nail looks, she’d been inside her apartment for 12 days.

Amid growing concerns at the time about the novel strain of Coronavirus, COVID-19, in northern Italy, Miss Pop travelled to Milan Fashion Week to do her job – creating nail looks for the Prabal Gurung and Jeremy Scott shows. She left Milan just as news of the Coronavirus outbreak hit, but as a precaution, she and her husband consulted their doctor, who advised them to self-quarantine.

Miss Pop’s job description includes sitting close to clients, holding their hands, and general physical contact. Nail artists and their fellow beauty professionals such as hairstylists, makeup artists and aestheticians were faced with a potential threat to their health or livelihood if the outbreak escalated. Freelance beauty pros can typically create their own schedules; for in-house employees, workplace practices are as much of a concern as individual healthy habits. Then there are dermatologists – medical doctors who have a responsibility for their patients.

The information and status of the Coronavirus outbreak rapidly evolved, but we wanted to get a snapshot of how the beauty world coped with the unprecedented challenge.

MAKEUP ARTISTS

A makeup artist’s job description includes many of the behaviours that we were warned to discontinue such as touching of the eyes and mouth. The inherent health risks meant that some makeup artists took hygiene concerns even more seriously.