New Yorkers flood barbershops, hair salons as Phase 2 reopening begins

New Yorkers are finally letting their hair down!

Big Apple barbershops and hair salons welcomed back scores of scruffy customers for post-quarantine cuts Monday as the city entered Phase Two of reopening.

Paul Kim, 40, waited on line for a fresh cut at Clinton Street Barber Shop in Brooklyn Heights, which at one point had a wait as long as two hours.

“I was one of their last customers when they shut down and I haven’t had a haircut in 17 weeks! My wife said I look terrible,” he told The Post.

Kim said he had been resigned to wearing a hat on Zoom calls — but now with a trim, he can finally toss it.

“I feel great! I feel like a million bucks! I feel human again!” Kim said.

Manager Isaac Rubinov said the store was forced to raise its prices by $5 in part because they had to get rid of one barber chair to comply with social distancing rules, he said.

“Not much room in here and we measured to keep 6 feet apart,” he told The Post. “[There are] the shower curtains between each chair [and] we had to take the TV out to make it work.”

But despite the higher rates, long lines spilled out Monday onto the block, where they set up folding chairs and a bench for waiting customers, he said.

“The wait now is about two hours. We have 20 people waiting now,” he said.

Rubinov said that after months of struggling to “pick up the pieces” without revenue, the reopening felt “like the first day of school.”

“Butterflies in my stomach, you don’t know what’s going to happen but you go and do it as best you can,” he said.