The site has been permitted to open Monday after six weeks of closure, as Germany is beginning to creep out of its economic paralysis.
But hair salons are subject to strict restrictions – cuts are only based on agreements, and social distance requirements have forced them to operate below capacity.
“Most customers have two centimeters of visible roots,” celebrity hairdresser Udo Walz told CNN. “Some of them try to cut their own hair or cover up the color, but that is usually wrong.”
Walz, who is styling hair for Marlene Dietrich, Nancy Reagan and Gwyneth Paltrow, said she had given telephone advice to customers. “Everyone wears masks, customers, hairdressers,” Walz added from the scene at his salon on Monday.
Like other hairdressers in Germany, he was required to leave every other chair empty. Hair stylists are required to cut dry hair and disinfect the surface regularly.
In Berlin, customers are asked to fill out forms with personal information before they can secure a place in the hairdresser’s chair. The newspaper asked the customer’s name, address, signature, and when they entered and left the salon.
Anne Bruemmer, owner of Salon Heidi, a smaller hairdressing salon in Hamburg, Germany, told CNN that they were “inundated.”
Bruemmer said that, although the client had to book an appointment and the salon had planned a reopening carefully, they were now booked two weeks in advance.
Loosening of restrictions was part of the first phase of the temporary reopening of German society. Breaking safety measures puts hairdressers at risk of a € 500 ($ 547) fine, Bruemmer said.
Some schoolchildren will start returning to lessons this week, but Chancellor Angela Merkel will hold talks with regional leaders on Wednesday about more businesses and services being opened nationally.
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