Baby It’s Cold Outside – Uniform Dressing for the Winter Months

Brrrr, there is nothing more shocking to the system than those cold mornings that seem to arrive from nowhere just after Halloween. This is when the panic sets in – where’s your coat? Why can’t you find any matching gloves? And what about something smart for work?

Even though we spend a fair amount of our year in coats and long sleeves, somehow the onset of winter still catches us by surprise. Throwing on a hoodie or a jacket will usually suffice at the weekend, but what happens if you need to wear a uniform for work and that uniform has short sleeves?!

Such is the dilemma for beauty, spa and medical aesthetic staff. The traditional tunic favoured by these industries is ultra-practical in the beauty salon or clinic, as treatment rooms need to be warm enough for clients to feel comfortable for body and skin treatments. However, for the beauty therapist, going from an incredibly warm room into the cold winter temperatures can feel like a very special form of torture! So, what can you do? Read on for our guide to adapting your beauty uniform for the winter months:

Invest in a staff cover-up

The quickest and easiest way for your staff to cope with the extreme temperature changes in a salon environment is a cover-up. Most staff will arrive in a coat or perhaps will have a cardigan or a top to throw on in between appointments or for lunchtimes. But let’s face it, beauty staff are the ultimate multi-taskers, and many might switch several times a day between a warm treatment room and the public-facing reception area for admin work or perhaps even a stint at a nail station – so throwing on an old cardi or hoodie is not exactly the most professional look.

There are solutions, however. Setting rules regarding cover-ups is one idea, for example, no sports tops, logos or bright colours, or perhaps requesting plain black only. Another solution is including a cover-up as part of the uniform. At Buttercups, we stock a beautiful fine-knit V-Neck Cardigan that is ideal for layering over a winter beauty uniform; available in black, navy, grey and purple, this smart yet warm cardigan is perfect for beauty, pharmacy, clinical and hospitality uniforms – in fact, for every industry!

Alternatively, we also stock the practical Results Core softshell jacket, an advance two-layer jacket. Again, smart enough for the salon (and even outside the salon), this beautiful jacket can even be embroidered with your salon name and logo!

Look at other uniform options

While the short-sleeved traditional beauty tunic is still the most practical option for the therapist working in hot treatment rooms, staff working in reception areas, in clinical treatments rooms or at nail stations might need to look at warmer alternatives for the winter months. Layering is always an option, especially with Buttercups’ looser uniform options such as our range of Scrubs and our High V Neck Tunic B035E.

Another alternative is to look for a tunic with longer sleeves. But rather than subject all your staff to a warmer option, look for a versatile style such as our Long Sleeve Tunic with Front Pocket B036E. This clever design is loose enough to fit a thermal layer underneath for staff members in chilly reception areas or outside stations, yet loose enough to keep spa and beauty therapists cool in heated treatment rooms. Or, give the option of our Long Sleeve Bow Detail Tunic B215LS – those working in treatment rooms can opt instead for the short-sleeved version!