Please support this initiative however you can
The utter powerhouse that is Caroline Hirons has launched a new initiative to help those struggling due to the ongoing restrictions for the beauty industry.
Beauty Backed is raising money for those people who have not been able to earn a living for five months, and campaigning for the restrictions preventing them from doing so to end.
Although some parts of the beauty industry are now open – hairdressers opened on 4th July while some beauty salons, such as nail bars, were able to open on the 13th – treatments involving face-to-face contact are still off-limits.
On Friday 31st of July, the day before facial treatments were due to resume, the government announced that this was to be pushed back by at least another two weeks. Whatever the reasoning, this was a devastating blow to those who are desperate to earn money again.
'Outside of medical environments, if any community can maintain the level of standards required for safety during the Covid-19 crisis, it’s the beauty industry,' the website reads. 'The health and safety of our clients always has been taken very seriously. It's time our industry is.'
In an Instagram Live on the campaign's launch day, Caroline read out a letter, penned to the British Beauty Council CEO Millie Kendall, from just one of millions of people on their knees because they have had no income during the pandemic.
Despite being self employed for three years, the author of the letter did not qualify for the government's financial support. She has been living on a food budget of £25 a week to feed her family, has had to borrow money from her electricity company, and her daughter no longer fits in the clothes they cut into vests and shorts at the start of lockdown.
'I cannot explain how this feels to see everything you've worked for go down the drain, and to see others get help, come back bigger and better, and me drowning and no one is listening,' she wrote. 'I feel low and worthless. It feels like there's millions of people screaming in my head and it's getting worse.'
'I feel dirty, low, tired, depressed, small and insignificant. I feel like nobody will want to invest in me and I also look like a pile of shit.
'I've always been used to making money stretch as a single mum but this is something else. This is nuclear.'
This is just one woman's story – she is part of a Facebook group with three million other people in similar situations. You can watch the video for yourself above.
Please sign the petition and, if you're in a position to do so, donate whatever you can via the links above.
#LetsBackBeauty #BeautyBacked
