Freelance Makeup Artists and Hairstylists Are Already Feeling Long-Term the Effects of COVID-19

The novel coronavirus has changed the world in what feels like a million ways already, and we’re uncertain about what things will look like when it’s all over. One of the larger, more universal effects it’s had has been on our work lives. Maybe you no longer go into an office day in and day out and have begun working from home instead. Maybe you’re a front line health care worker, now working longer hours than ever under dangerous conditions. Maybe you’re not able to work from home, and the COVID-19 pandemic has caused you to lose employment altogether. The latter situation is the case for the majority of freelance makeup artists and hairstylists, as the virus has all but completely shut down their industry.

Doing hair and makeup professionally involves face-to-face, one-on-one contact — the very thing that the entire world has been told to avoid to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus. For these freelance artists, this makes their jobs — and for many, their primary source of income — an impossibility. Now these professionals are left to find creative ways to keep their heads above water, both emotionally and financially.

For freelance makeup artists and hairstylists (especially those not based in a major hub like New York City), travel is often a huge part of their careers. Dimant, for example, had an upcoming weeklong gig in Houston that was canceled because of the outbreak. Kayleigh Irene Feidler, a hair colorist who works in Louisville, Kentucky, and Los Angeles, had been flying cross-country once a month for work until COVID-19 made both travel and work an impossibility.

“I have had to cancel multiple trips back to L.A., and this felt like a really harsh blow to the momentum I had while building my business,” she explains.

There are other things to consider as a result of this pandemic, including the shutdown of schools and the cost of things like studio spaces. Freelance makeup artist Genn Shaughnessy lives in New York City and says her business has come to a “crashing halt.”

“I am now a stay-at-home homeschool mom and cannot work,” says Shaughnessy. “I have a retail space and a makeup studio space I rent and pay expenses with zero income.”

Source: -cont- https://www.allure.com/story/covid-19-freelance-makeup-artists-hairstylists