While Lithuanians have generally welcomed Ukrainians fleeing war, competition in the beauty industry has created resentment among local cosmetologists.
Xenia from Odesa (not her real name) came to Klaipeda, Lithuania’s third city, back in March 2022, after deciding it wasn’t safe for herself and her daughter to stay in the city shelled by Russia.
They chose to seek shelter in Lithuania because many people in the country speak Russian and Xenia thought it would be easier to adapt.
“Many of my friends went to Germany, France and Poland, but what can you do there when you don’t speak the language?” Xenia says. “And Klaipeda is like Odesa. We cannot live anywhere but by the sea.”
Once here, the Ukrainian did not want to stay unemployed. In Odesa, Xenia was a sought-after manicurist, and in Lithuania she also wanted to be in the business.
“A lot of girls come to me now, both Ukrainians and Lithuanians. So I can’t complain about the lack of work. And before the New Year holidays, I was fully booked,” she says.
But she wasn’t so successful in the beginning. When she had just arrived in Klaipeda, she responded to an advertisement for a salon looking for a manicurist. She was received very warmly in the beginning, but then the attitude changed.
“The salon worked on the usual 60-40 system. That is, I received 60% of the fee and the rest went to the salon. When I came, everyone treated me very well. The girls who worked there and the owner helped me with everything. I was given a workplace and all the necessary materials,” says the Ukrainian.
The owner of the salon was impressed with Xenia’s portfolio, so she was quickly offered the job.
The client base at the salon was quite big. Only three manicurists worked at the salon and each serviced three or four clients a day. Most of them were Ukrainian and Russian-speaking women, and each of the manicurists at the salon had their own regular clients.
But one day, one of them fell ill and her clients were referred to Xenia.
“I used to have two or three clients a day, but then they signed up as many as eight and I took them all in. The clients were very satisfied and said how well I worked. I was very happy that they were satisfied. Some said that from now on they would only come to me,” recalls the Ukrainian.
Her client base grew, with many of the salon’s regulars now seeking her services. After a month, Xenia had the most clients in the beauty salon.
“My appointments were booked up for weeks in advance, and I worked 10 hours a day. But while the salon owner rejoiced over so many clients, the other girls began to hate me. After all, many clients left them and made appointments with me,” says Xenia.
At first, according to Xenia, there were just angry whispers behind her back, but soon enough resentment turned into open hostility.
“They did not want to communicate with me, if I asked something, they were very reluctant to answer, and when I needed something from the materials, I was constantly rejected,” she recalls. “There was one occasion when I didn’t have glitter in the colour a client wanted at that moment, I went over to my colleague’s desk and asked her to share, to which she rudely replied: “First you take clients, and now materials?” I was very offended and decided I had to leave.”
She started looking for premises and drawing up documents to start her own business.
Xenia says many of her compatriots have had similar experiences in Lithuania.
“That is why many work for themselves,” she adds.
Lithuanian Greta from Vilnius (not her real name) is a manicurist and eyebrow specialist in one of the big salons in the capital where she has been working for over five years. Many Ukrainians have applied for work in her salon, Greta says, and now its staff includes eight Lithuanians and five Ukrainians.
“At first, we all felt sorry for them, because there was a war, some of them had been sitting in basements for weeks. So when they joined our salon, all our girls tried to help them in any way they could,” Greta says. “But then they brazenly took clients from us. A few of my clients also went to a Ukrainian. And she took them all away without blinking an eye.”
She says that beauty salon workers have a rule not to poach each other’s clients.
“It is unacceptable to take clients away from your colleagues. Salon owners do not care who clients go to, as long as they go. And we work on commission, so the number of clients is very important for us,” Greta says.
Some Ukrainian beauticians heed this rule – they apologise and ask permission before taking a client, but others behave quite brazenly.
“We have a girl from Ukraine and she, when a client wanted to switch to her from a Lithuanian colleague, asked her to go back. She was very apologetic to everyone for taking the client away. But there are some who think it’s no big deal,” Greta says.
The influx of people has increased competition for local cosmetologists, she admits. “If before we were competing with each other, now we are competing with a large number of Ukrainian specialists. On purpose or not, they are taking clients away from us.”
Another Ukrainian nail technician and lash specialist Lilia, who now lived and worked in Vilnius, also said that she faced hostility from her Lithuanian colleagues at the beginning, so she decided to work for herself.
“I came to Lithuania relatively recently. When the constant shelling started and the electricity went out because of it, I took my three children and we moved to spend the winter with light and heat,” Lilia says.
In order to make a living, she started looking for clients. “There are a lot of them here. Most are Ukrainians who have just arrived or have been living here for a long time.”
She heard stories about competition in the beauty sector in Lithuania, and when she posted an advertisement for her services on social media, she also received angry comments.
“Several Lithuanian women wrote under my post that we have moved here, that we are taking money from them, someone wrote that there are already many cosmetologists and there is no work for them. Many of the commenters were from beauty industry workers,” recalls Lilia.
Lilia now has enough clients but agrees that the competition is intense.
“I don’t want to offend anyone, but the truth is that Ukrainian masters are the best,” she believes. “Lithuanian women have come to me and said that my work is amazing. And there were cases when Ukrainians came to me and asked me to redo what was done in an expensive Vilnius salon, because their nails looked just terrible.”
Both Xenia and Lilia say that, despite the negativity, they are not going to stop working and go home before the war is over.
“I don’t think I’m stealing money from anyone. I work and I work a lot. I also spend on rent, materials, and tools. So no matter what anyone says, I’m not going to leave Lithuania until the war is over,” Lilia insists. (LRT/Business World Magazine)