Let’s Support The Industry By Tamara Reid

It’s no surprise to anyone when I say that the e ffects of the 2020 global pandemic have been crippling. Layer the weight of long-term business closures on the shoulders of anyone and you’re sure to witness the pain almost immediately. What we least expected was to celebrate the end of the year and head into a new one, only to experience the same hardships that we thought we had already triumphed over - but that’s exactly what has happened.

We’ve all heard the saying, “when you purchase from a small business, a real person does a happy dance” but across the professional beauty industry right now, dancing is the last thing on our minds.

Tamara Reid, Founding Director, Beaute Industrie & Vice Chair, Aesthetic & Beauty Industry Council.

With lockdown now up to 4.0 for some states, the State Government’s Circuit Breaker Support Package, designed to provide financial relief for businesses has seen only one in seven successfully meet its needs, leaving the remaining businesses without ANY financial assistance while their doors are closed and team are stood down.

An industry that is no stranger to the mental and financial stress of lockdowns is ours, the Professional Beauty and Aesthetic Industry where hundreds of salons, spas, clinics and wellness centres have had their doors closed more than opened on them over the past eighteen months.

Behind the faces of the smiling beauty therapists, promoting their online stores, consulting via zoom and sharing their innovative at-home facial kits are exhausted individuals fighting for not just their businesses, but their ability to put food on the table.

They are parents, siblings, children and carers. They are the breadwinners and for some, the sole income for their family. They’re also the home-schooling teachers, the chefs, the chauff ers, the cleaners and the looming reality of many businesses that won’t reopen once restrictions lift.

JUNE 3RD

I started my Thursday morning like most mornings by checking in with our 8,000+ strong Facebook Group community. Except this morning was the first following the Victorian Stage 3 Lockdown extension and the outcry for support was deafening. Sitting for a while in the space trying to figure out if and how I could help, I went back to basics and absolute necessity to survive and advised the community that if anyone was unsure of whether they could feed their families throughout this lockdown extension, that I would anonymously purchase them a food delivery box - no questions asked, no ifs or buts, we would never mention it again. The response was immobilising. Not just one, but many people reached out in tears completely broken, accepting what they would normally feel too fearful and timid to ask for help feeding themselves and their families. Within minutes of my post, multiple people had taken me up on the o er. Just two hours later I had already sent out eight boxes of food. I knew by this point that there would be dozens more out there that needed this help but were too embarrassed or too proud to ask. This scared me for the safety and wellbeing both mentally and physically of our people. Jumping into a weekly routine phone call with Stefanie Milla, CEO of the Aesthetic & Beauty Industry Council (ABIC) the conversation was quickly taken over by my morning and a description of what was happening out in our industry and rapidly turned into a brainstorm of ways in which the ABIC as a Non-For-Profit association could increase the support. Loudening the voices of an unheard industry, together we launched an offi cial Go Fund Me campaign to increase the awareness and gain more funds to help those struggling. The donated funds were being collected with the intention of purchasing shopping vouchers from Coles, as we soon realised that it wasn’t just food that needed to be put on the tables of people, but too, food for our four legged furry friends and for essential supplies such as baby formula and sanitary items.

JUNE 4TH

The combined force of the ABIC Board and Foundation Members and generosity of the Beaute Industrie community saw a whopping $25,000 raised in the space of just 24 hours! Watching the donations roll in and the figure climb from hundreds into thousands gave me tears of joy and relief that the support so many needed was about to be possible. Some of the industry’s most prominent brands helped us reach this incredible figure. Brands including Advanced Skin Technology, Candela Medical, Dermalist, Dermaviduals Australia, INSKIN Cosmedics, MargiFox Distributors, Murad Australia and Professional Beauty Solutions are just some who got behind the cause, donating thousands towards the goal. Calls, voicemails, texts and private messages poured in from a broken industry being put back together slowly and surely with a feeling of hope providing them with the strength they can find the courage to keep going and fighting, knowing that they are being seen, heard and helped. The resounding notion that people ‘had given up until they saw this campaign’ was echoed throughout the continued communication. It was at this time we realised that a simple good deed had turned into a National support campaign and soon thereafter was making waves as the likes of radio, newspapers and tv stations reached out to hear about the support this drive was able to provide to our industry. Elevating the importance of the issue, Stefanie Milla, started reaching out to Political Ministers in government to bring attention to the profound need of Victorians and the industry at large.

JUNE 9TH

With over $30,000 now raised and an urgency to distribute the funds as fast as possible, it was here that we started the call out for people to apply for the vouchers. Understanding that while no amount of money could save people’s businesses, nor provide a complete wage of pay for the multiple people who were stood down from duties without pay, an allocation of $100 per person would see approximately 300 people receiving support.

JUNE 11TH

Victorian based brand, Synergie Skin, saw the call out for support and open handedly announced to their customers a pledge of $5 from their best-selling Vitamin B serum sold over the long weekend would be donated to the fund announcing, ‘It breaks our hearts to see beauty professionals hurting through this pandemic, in challenging circumstances that are beyond their control. In particular, this last lockdown has hit Victorian small businesses exceptionally hard. Restock your vitamin B serum or visit your favourite Synergie stockist and help us donate to this cause. There’s no better time than now.’. The pledge saw Synergie Skin contribute an additional $5,000 to the fund, taking the collective total to $36,340 to support the industry - over 350 people able to put food on the table and fill their homes with essential supplies.

I always knew this industry to be filled with caring and supportive people, and now we can add generous to the list of traits we associate with our community. What astounded me the most was many people who have contributed to the campaign are too Business Owners, Brands and Therapists who have first handedly faced the struggles and hardship of the pandemic themselves, yet when called upon, they were the first to dig deep and contribute for the support of their fellow colleagues.

While we are optimistically holding onto hope for the future to look brighter, due to the unknown nature of the spreadable virus potentially causing further restrictions and businesses to open and close, the future looks distant as to when the world, let alone our industry, will be in the clear. It is with hope that our industry can remain open for the foreseeable future but too with bated breath that we keep open the GoFundMe support drive, as a pool of available funds to continue to pass along to Business Owners and Therapists who are in need come future lockdowns. The more money we continue to raise, the more people we can help. That being said, if you would like to donate, the fund will remain open and you can do so and we thank you in advance.

I would like to thank every single person for their donations, big or small, to the brands who have dug deep, to the those who shared the campaign and to those who helped us build this much needed support.

The raised funds are yet to exhaust their allocation and funds are still available for distribution should you be in a position where you’re needing support to get you from week to week or to make ends meet. Please head to https://theabic.org. au/news/melbourne-covid-support-applications to complete an application form and support will be on its way shortly.