California reverses course on nail salons, announces they can resume indoor operations soon

California nail salons will be allowed to resume indoor operations soon, according to the state’s top health official.

“We are announcing a move and we will be working with our counties and local sector leaders around nail salons being able to move into the purple tier, so statewide nail salons allowed to begin operations. We will be giving more information about that soon, but that is something that we are announcing today,” Health and Human Services Secretary Mark Ghaly said during a press conference Tuesday.

Under previous state guidance, nail salons were allowed to operate only outdoors in purple counties.

The purple tier is the state’s most restrictive category, reserved for counties where COVID-19 is the most rampant.

The state’s restrictions against opening nail salons for indoor operation has rankled groups such as the Professional Beauty Federation of California, which has criticized the targeting of nail salons as “arbitrarily discriminatory, dividing our barbering/beauty industry along gender, racial and industry sector lines.”

Nearly three-quarters of California nail salons are owned by first-generation Vietnamese immigrants, according to the group representing them.

Fred Jones, who serves as legal counsel and advocate for the group, said that while his group is grateful for the state’s Tuesday announcement, “we’re just so frustrated that it took the governor and the Department of Public Health this long.”

“There was no rational basis, either scientific or data, to justify reopening indoor hair salons and barbershops and not nail care salons,” Jones said.

Jones said the fight now turns to skincare professionals, or aestheticians, which he said is the last category of cosmetology professional to remain restricted against resuming indoor operations.

“They remain out in the cold, or in this case out in the smoke and heat,” he said.

This story was originally published September 22, 2020 at 1:37 PM.