As Canberra's lockdown stretches into its sixth week, the Zoom regrowth is getting unbearable, and hairdressers are itching to help.
"As the days and the weeks roll on, people are getting more and more desperate," Eden Hair Energy owner and hairdresser Emma Port said.
"I think, especially with ... a lot of our clients being on team meetings, and seeing themselves all the time and their regrowth is getting worse by the day."
Unable to make an income for the entirety of lockdown, and yet to see any funds from the Business Support Grant she applied for, Ms Port has had to innovate in order to support her clients, offering at-home colour kits via click-and-collect.
"We reached a point where we thought we have to provide something that is going to be safer for them than using a store-bought colour," she said.
The service won't make a huge financial difference for Ms Port, who has lost about 70 per cent of her business, drawn down on her home mortgage, and relied upon the savings she'd put aside for her maternity leave to stay afloat.
"It's certainly at least something, and it's providing a service to our clients," she said.
"And they can at least hopefully, help get us through this period until we get some support whenever that may be, if it happens."
Providing an at-home service was a difficult decision for Ms Port. "It can be seen as taking away from the professionalism of our industry," she said.
She's tried to be respectful of other salons in Canberra by only providing the service to existing clients.
The ACT government has kept its pathway out of lockdown vague, saying it wants to avoid making promises it can't keep, but many businesses feel they've been left in the dark.
"I'm getting contacted by quite a few clients requesting bookings," said Jenni Tarrant, hairdresser and owner of Bond Hair Religion.
"So and I'm having to say to them, that I can't I have no understanding of where we're going or what we're doing."
Ms Tarrant is concerned about planning for the future and whether she'll have adequate notice to prepare for changing restrictions.
Chief Minister Andrew Barr has said that further details will be provided next week, and at the scheduled end of lockdown on October 15.
Ms Tarrant has already renovated her space with the pandemic in mind, spacing basins 1.5 metres apart and increasing stations from 14 to 28, to factor in capacity limits.
But scheduling in a surge of clients when lockdown does end, and balancing that with health restrictions and paying staff, will be a huge effort.
"When we get back, our books are already full, and we've got nine weeks worth of clients that we've got to fit in somewhere," she said.
"It might mean that we have to shorten the services, that they might leave with wet hair, which goes against who we are as professionals."
But clients will "be desperate to get in" and she can't overwork her staff, nor can she afford to pay double time.
