Coronavirus Update - The Chapel Hairdressing

Dear Guests,

We were finally allowed to open our Chapel doors on Saturday 4th July and it has been a pleasure to welcome all our guests back. We’ve listened and learned to what each of you experienced during lockdown and undoubtedly there were some struggles, but there was also a lot of positivity. It’s been great to be back!

To provide (more than ever before!) deserved ‘me time’ respite for you all, we’ll all need to continue with our procedures and guidelines.

We appreciate this is a lengthy piece however, it’s imperative that we all understand what has changed, so we’ve summarised in brief and expanded with details and reasonings beneath.

What You Need To Know (And How We Can Look After Each Other): Bullet points with full reasoning below.

• Please bring a face covering with elastic hooked behind your ears. This MUST be worn for the duration of your visit at the salon.
• Please arrive just in time for your scheduled appointment. (Gov. guidelines)

You must organise a skin test prior to your appointment if:
- you have not had a colour appointment or skin test within 6 months.
- if you have used a box-dye since your last colour appointment.
- if you have suffered from an illness that has recently put your immune system under strain (Coronavirus is an example of this). Any illness that puts your immune system under strain may cause your body to overreact to colour services.

If you are under any doubt or concern that a recent illness may have affected you, you must come in for a skin test 48 hours or more before your appointment. Please see our skin test guidelines here.

Please familiarise yourself with the procedures and guidelines outlined in detail, prior to your visit.

Our primary method is still telephone bookings as it allows the fastest ‘back and forth’ with finding dates and will lead to you getting what you would like soonest.

We are only booking as far as the 7th November in Sevenoaks and Tunbridge Wells as we want to ensure these new, longer opening hours are sustainable for the teams’ wellbeing.  We will continuously review this and update you with new dates via all communications channels.

We have reactivated the App/Late Availability sidebar on the website for the simplest services for now. These are the Cut & Finish, Gent’s Cut, and Blowdry services as they are the least complex to book and will allow very easy rebookings based on your previous/usual appointment lengths. You can download the app here.

Please avoid bringing unnecessary items such as large bags, shopping, coats/umbrellas unless absolutely necessary.

Please come alone and do not bring guests, family members or pets with you, unless you have a carer or partner helping with health and mobility issues, or have a guide dog.

Please use hand sanitiser provided, before and after your visit.

Have you had the recent onset of a new continuous cough? Do you have a high temperature? Have you noticed a loss of, or change in, normal sense of taste or smell? If yes to any of these symptoms, however mild, you must stay at home and reschedule your appointment. (Gov. guidelines)

To protect you, your fellow guests and our teams we reserve the right to reschedule any person attending with symptoms. Please notify us in advance and we’ll do our best to find you a new appointment as soon as possible.

Important Temporary Changes:

• We are continuing with one-way systems in our salons and created socially distanced seating for additional safety across all aspects of your visit.
• We have social distancing workflows within separate mini-teams to minimise equipment/product sharing and all stylists are individually equipped with personal cleaning products and sustainable safety gear.
• We are taking payments from the comfort of your salon chair before the end of your visit. This should prevent queuing when checking out. We recommend downloading and setting up Apple Pay or Google Pay beforehand on your phone which will negate the need to touch the terminals

Skin Safety Tests

The safety of our guests has always been paramount to us all and we are pleased that continuing these same practices is just as simple and easy as before.

The good news is that our skin safety test procedures are still the same; if you have had a colour service with The Chapel 6 months prior to your appointment, no further skin test is required.

However, following advice from our colour suppliers, we do have one new exception - if you have used a box colour between appointments, we will need to carry out a new skin test.

For anyone that requires a skin test, this must be done at least 48 hours prior to your appointment.

Booking Times & Opening Hours

Appointment Lengths

The whole team has been working through their guest lists to tailor and personalise your experience to give you the very best results, allowing them to be the most professional stylist they can be. What this means, is that as we haven’t seen some of you for a long time and lots may have changed with your hair (especially colour and grown out styles), they may have selected slightly longer appointment times for you on your initial visits.

The booking team will inform you of how long your stylist or the team collectively have recommended for you. Your stylist will then take the time to tailor your appointment times in future, and in conversation with you. Some salons will have dramatically changed rosters, others less so - the new hours are available here.

Opening Hours & Stylists’ Schedules

New hours available by clicking here.

If you have an existing appointment that falls outside of their new hours, we should have been rearranged with you by now. Please call us if we were unsuccessful in contacting you.

Our New Environment

There is clear signage outside our salons explaining the new procedures in place. We ask that you wait outside, following the signage, whilst we greet and seat each guest. For everybody's safety, all guests are required to wear face coverings (these should hook around the ears), and Chapel team members are required to wear Type IIR Sterilised face coverings alongside a face shield. Your stylist will have a designated seating area for each guest and they will greet you there - we respectfully request that you do not bring non-essential company with you and bring as little as possible by way of coats and bags. 

Our Safety Changes

At The Chapel, we are extremely fortunate to have a lot of space which makes social distancing easier for us than for other businesses. Our sections are designed with the mirror as a screen and are a minimum of 2 metres apart, so we don’t need to provide extra screening.

New rosters are in place to minimise the number of guests arriving or leaving at any one time.

Seating areas have also been redesigned with safe social distancing in mind and your stylist has designated seating areas for each guest and to use throughout the day (they keep the same styling chairs and sanitise them before and after every use.

The teams have also been given their own cleaning equipment which they’ll have at their sections at all times, so they are the only ones that touch and use them. This includes antibacterial spray, equipment sterilising spray, alcohol gel, cleaning cloths and wooden spatulas to use for styling products.

When working closely with you, the team will be wearing face shields in line with government guidelines alongside the highest medical grade specification Type IIR Sterilised Masks. Face shields are cleaned after each use and a fresh mask is used for each new guest.

At The Chapel, all our salons are equipped with on-premise laundry and drying facilities, and as always our towels and gowns are washed on-site between every use.
We have also created a buddy system for our teams which means they stay together to perform the jobs that are needed to be done around the salons, and be assigned cleaning duty, laundry and other essential tasks on a daily basis, minimising the number of people in areas throughout the day.

Refreshments - Magazines

The government guidelines dictate that for now, we are only able to provide water as a refreshment whilst visiting us, we are working with local authorities to bring back in a safe menu for you all so you can enjoy the little treats you were used to having at The Chapel. We will be offering water which will be filtered and provided in reception areas.

In addition, we are currently not allowed to provide hard copies of magazines however by working together with our providers, we are able to offer you complimentary digital copies whilst in the salon. Please bring along your mobiles and tablets so that you can read and relax with your favourites during your visit.

Bookings, Payments and Rebookings

To remove the need for unnecessary queuing and congregating, we’ll be taking payments in the chair during or at the end of your visit with us. Our host team will come around with a tray with sterilised payment terminals. We recommend downloading and installing Apple Pay or Google Pay on your phone which will negate the need to touch the terminals. For future colour appointments, please discuss these with your stylist during your appointment or whilst your colour is processing.

Thank you for taking the time to read our latest update and very much look forward to welcoming you again soon.

The Chapel Team