- Angela Saylor has been an aesthetician in Phoenix,
Arizona , for 22 years and has owned her ownspa since 2004. - After closing her spa on March 18, she began seeing clients again on May 15, the day that Arizona officially reopened.
- To protect herself and her clients while they are unable to wear a mask, she has established precautionary steps and wears four pieces of personal protective equipment while working.
- With the number of
COVID-19 cases in Arizona rising by the day, she worries that she will once again have to close. - This is Saylor's story, as told to Gabby Shacknai, a freelance writer
Angela Saylor is an aesthetician in Phoenix, Arizona, where she has owned her own spa, Olos Euro Medspa, for 16 years. She stopped seeing clients on March 18 and reopened nearly two months later, on May 15.
Since her job requires her clients be bare-faced, she has had to take extra precautions to ensure their and her safety.
This is her story.
As a self-employed business owner, Saylor says closing had a big impact financially.
It was terrifying. Between my husband and I, we are definitely a 50-50 contribution to the household, and I really worried as a small-business owner. I have five other rooms that I rent out to other aesthetician, a naturopathic physician, and an acupuncturist, so I was very worried for them and didn't know what it would mean for my lease. I did reach out to my landlord when I realized on April 1 that everyone was going to be shut down, and he kindly deferred April's rent to the end of my lease, so that took off a lot of pressure.
I told all of the girls here not to worry about paying me their portion because I wanted any money they had to go towards feeding their families, paying their mortgages and car payments, and all that.
But there are certain things that, as a small-business owner, don't stop for you. My payments to the IRS come out regardless, and I have $800 or $900 coming out for health insurance. We didn't get stimulus checks until six or seven weeks in, I didn't qualify for unemployment, and I could only get $1,000 in small-business loans. To be honest, it got pretty dire, and I hadn't been able to go back when I did, I would've had to start putting everything on credit cards.
So, I really needed to get back to work, but it was such a moral quandary of how I could do it in a way that keeps everyone safe.
Reopening seemed reasonable, but facials potentially carried more risk than other services.
At the time of reopening, Arizona's numbers were still very low, in fact some of the lowest in the nation, so it didn't seem like an incredibly risky thing to do. Even though I'm touching people, I'd read enough from the CDC and on the requirements and recommendations to make sure I went a little above and beyond what was even required of me.
We were really just supposed to wear masks and have hand sanitation, but to me that wasn't enough. I knew that if I was going to be touching people's faces, I needed to have gloves on, and even though my clients couldn't wear masks, I would wear a mask and eye guard.
She came up with a number of precautionary steps and a full cleaning routine.
In the appointment reminder email I send to clients, they're asked to look over some questions about where they've traveled, who they've been around, and if they've had any symptoms to help filter out any risks before they even step through the door.
When they arrive for their appointment, I have clients wait in their car and send me a text that they're here, and then I'll tell them when to come in so that no one is in the lobby area at the same time and my cleaning process is finished by the time they walk in. I open the door for them, so they never touch any knobs, and I spray them with hand sanitizer on their way in and their way out.
I now have a 15-minute window between clients so that I can go through my routine, and I've got that process down to about nine minutes. I literally go from one side of my treatment room to the other, and anything that I or my client could have touched gets wiped down with something that kills the virus within 30 seconds to a minute. Everything gets wiped down — the bathroom, the door knobs, the table where people can put their keys. The linens, as required by state board standards, are always cleaned well with bleach, and all of my tools, as always, are put in cavicide, barbicide, and marbicide, so it kills everything bacterial, tuberculocidal, fungal, all of that.
It does take me a little longer to do all of this, and it means I can't see as many clients in a day, so I've had to pick up an extra day to make up for the difference.
Saylor is going far beyond what's required, but she feels that's what her clients expect.
One of my clients told me the other day as she was leaving, 'Oh my god, Angela, you look like someone who's been off their meds,' and I just kind of looked at her and was like, 'Thank you?' But she said, 'This is why I come to you, because I know you do the right thing, and that's why I'm here.' A lot of my clients are people I've seen for almost 20 years, so they know me personally, and they know that I am very diligent and that I take my job very seriously. It's really about being ethical and doing the right thing for your clients.
Getting a facial might not seem like a top priority right now, but for many of her clients, it's something more.
When I first reopened, it was overwhelmingly well-received, but there were some people who questioned it, saying, 'How badly does someone need a facial that they would get one in the middle of a pandemic?'
That was very difficult because this is what I do for a living, and I felt extremely judged. My clients come for more than just a face rub; we have an intimate relationship, and they feel they can talk to me. Our relationship is more than skin deep. It's something they look forward to and I look forward to, and as long as I'm able to continue doing this in a safe manner, I feel very confident about what I'm doing.
Her precautions have kept COVID-19 out of the spa so far, but as Arizona's case numbers continue to rise and some businesses are closed once again, the fate of Saylor's business is once again uncertain.
I'm really worried because most small businesses have a month or two of working capital, and I'm presently at the waterline. The PPP Loan I received reimbursed me for the seven weeks I didn't work, but there is nothing available like that again for small businesses. My business expenses will continue, and I will be financially strained if I have to start borrowing from banks, and I don't like the idea of going into debt even if it's a SBA loan with a small percentage rate.
My anxiety is also attached to the idea that my renters need to pay rent today and if we get closed down again, they are going to be out a portion of money that they may have needed to pay for groceries and diapers.
If for any reason I'm told I need to take a break again, that's what I'll do. It's just morally and ethically responsible. But this is incredibly stressful on all of us, and I'm honestly torn between meeting my business obligations and being a compassionate human being. It's a moral quandary.
Gabby Shacknai is a New York-based journalist and editor who covers beauty and wellness, food and travel, and lifestyle. Her work has appeared in Fortune, ELLE, Travel + Leisure, Air Mail, Departures, and Women's Health, among other outlets.