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Cherisse Halsall headed to some local salons and barber shops to find out about post quarantine grooming needs:

It was a long month of growing beards, and splitting ends as COVID-Belize lost the services of beauticians and barbers. But once Barbershops and salons got the greenlight to open clients were pounding down their doors to get into chairs.

Cherisse Halsall:
"So how many calls did you get right after it was announced that you could be open?"

Ansar Ahmad, Senior Barber
"It was crazy, yesterday and the day before I was overwhelmed by the amount of people who wanted their haircuts and thank God we're back to business. We take all precautions necessary. We wear our masks, We sanitize, we disinfect all our tools, we ensure that that is done here."

Cherisse Halsall:
"Not to talk bad about your customers or anything but how were people looking in general when they came in after a months time?"

Ansar Ahmad, Senior Barber
"Well they gone from looking like werewolf to me good."

Ruperto Mendez, Barber
"Basically right now when you come to the barber shop you can't more than 3 people as your clients waiting for you. You have to have one person cutting and when your done dealing with that person then maybe you call the next one on appointment to allow him to come in because too much of you in the barber shop, you know cluster up and we're trying to avoid that cause we're trying to run from that little charge, right."

"We have some stuff that we bought like the barbicide to wash out our tools, and we have the hair clipper disinfectant, we spray down our tools, when it comes to the chair we have to make sure that every time a client comes out we sanitize it with the same disinfectant that we use on the machine or the same barbicide."

It looks like Barbicide is the order of the day. It's also heavily in use at Hank's barber shop. And Owner Nick Ross says sanitary measures are all important right now even with the regulation limited clientele.

Nicholas Ross, Owner, Hank's Barber Shop
"We clean up the stations after every client and we started mopping with Barbicide we added barbicide and bleach, well, bleach we already did but we added Barbicide to the solution because we know that's good for everything, hospitals use it so."

"We are only working with two barbers right now. We're as busy as we can be. We're doing our best to follow the rules we're only allowed two customers at a time and we try to keep it extra clean clearer than usual, and yeah we're just staying busy."

One happy customer was proud and happy to show off his post quarantine wave.

Devon Phillips, Client
"Well I just got my tape and got my wave check done."

"If you had come 5 minutes earlier you would have seen how I looked like a caveman but thank God you came just in time to, as he almost done, check the wave, yeah."

"These guys been my barber's for about 5-6 years so not anybody could play in my hair you know, these guys are certified."

Unisex hair Salon Abraham Hairmoda has a good grasp of all-important grooming statistics.

Cherisse Halsall:
"Who was more excited to get groomed men or women?"

Abraham Safa, Owner, Abraham Hairmoda
"More for women now, we're doing more women because they've been waiting for colorings and highlight and perm."

"We've been busy, quite busy because people we're waiting for 5 weeks to open up and get themselves fixed up and groomed."

"I can feel that the people are happy you know the people are happy, talking, and laughing from inside that we are back to business and open, that we could come back to life."

Cherisse Halsall:
"How excited were you to get your haircut today?"

Javier Ponce, Client
"Oh very, Very excited because you know we have to come back to normal. So it's good to be here."

Cherisse Halsall:
"What state was your hair and beard in before you were able to sit in this chair."

Javier Ponce, Client
"A very bad state. So it was time."

And across town at the famous Mapye's beauty world, the salon owner was getting back to her own beauty routine. She told us how she dealt with the weekend rush.

Mapye Smith, Owner, Mapye's Beauty World
"I didn't have a choice but to remain calm and only take 3 people at a time. Thank God we have a large salon. We just do one person at a time. We're open Saturday, Sunday, Monday and now today Tuesday."

Cherisse Halsall:
"So for this new normal a lot of things have changed in the beauty salon, as you've said, what remains the same?"

Mapye Smith, Owner, Mapye's Beauty World
"The same is service, service, service listening to people, asking, making sure you understand communication, what they want, what is accepted."

"Even while I was closed I wrote out some standards for cosmetology. Because I was the lead person who created the curriculum for cosmetology in Belize. So we looked at renewing the standards and renewing health and safety issues, We looked at some standard operating procedures that the entire beauty industry will have to use."

While Barbershops and salons were allowed to open, Spas remained closed.