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SATURDAY, APRIL 11, 2020
Features
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The economy may
have slowed and normal life come to a
standstill, but in the world of hair, a follicle
free-for-all unencumbered by COVID-19 has
Americans asking one critical question - to
cut or not to cut?
For Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot, the
answer was clear, “I thought I would do it
myself but I thought it would be a disaster.”
She only admitted to having had her hair
cut after being caught red-handed when her
hairdresser posted on Facebook that giving
the mayor a trim had been a pleasure: cue the
chorus of public shaming.
In her defence, Lightfoot invoked her
visibility and the fact that the hairdresser
wore a mask, but the accusations of privilege
and elitism poured in.
Stuck at home for several weeks,
Americans are finding their normally
carefully coiffed ‘dos growing roots or even
transforming into mullets.
Rather than despair, many are using their
intriguing growth patterns and bird’s nest-like
locks as an antidote to tragedy, posting jokes,
memes, video montages and even helpful
video tutorials online.
Even
The New York Times
has gotten in on
the act with articles explaining
How to Take
Care of Your Hair at Home
and
How to Touch
Up Your Roots at Home
.
Not everyone - celebrities included - has
seen success.
Actor Riz Ahmed of
Rogue One: A Star
Wars Story
appeared to have taken a razor to
his head with a near buzz cut.
“Anyone else do a #StayAtHome haircut
that got outta hand?” he posted on Twitter,
along with a photo of his new look and a
forlorn expression.
“At least now feels like there’s someone
else here when I look in mirror.”
Mary Lee Gannon, a 59-year-old Pittsburg
resident, is not a celebrity but said her spouse
was beginning to look like one.
“I offered to cut my husband’s hair two
weeks ago because he looked like Mike
Jagger - he turned me down,” she said.
When he finally took her up on her offer,
she armed herself with an old pair of scissors
previously used to cut their dog’s hair and
took his tresses to task.
The end result, “He was very pleased, it
worked out okay,” she said.
For child star Julia Butters from
Once
Upon a Time... in Hollywood
, cutting her
father’s hair did not end in a happily-ever-
after storybook finish, even if the experience
- and extremely patchy looking ‘do - provided
a bit of fun.
“This is one of the bravest fathers I have
ever met,” she said as she goes to town on his
hair in a video posted online.
His response, “There is a thin line between
bravery and stupidity.” Most hairdressers live
by the adage that it is better to wait for a cut
Leanne Italie
NEW YORK (AP) - Sister love playing out in a
living-room hair trim. A botched home dye
job with a silver lining.
Stylists shipping out kits of personalised
colour with promises to talk their regulars
through the process via FaceTime.
As the spread of the COVID-19 sends
more people into isolation, trips to beloved
salons and barbershops for morale-boosting
services and camaraderie are on hold.
While some brazenly cut themselves new
bangs, turn to over-the-counter colour or try
picking up electric clippers and scissors to
work on the heads of loved ones, others are
letting nature take its course.
Memes and real-life stories are flying
about cuts gone bad and the onslaught of
grey hair, along with out-of-control eyebrows,
sad lash extensions and overdue nail work.
While such things seem frivolous in the sad
and desperate crush of the pandemic, many
people are reaching for rituals as emotional
relief and connection to their longstanding
way of life.
Mary Beth Warner in Syracuse, New York,
has a lighthearted air about her as she hunkers
down with her husband and 17-year-old son,
but she is not laughing on the inside.
“I remember my mom used to say during
the war, as long as they could get lipstick
they were happy,” she said. “That’s how I feel
right now about my hair.”
Warner, 63, usually travels to Manhattan
for colour appointments every four weeks
with Frank Friscioni at Oon Arvelo Salon. He’s
been doing her colour (blonde) for 25 years.
She’s past her regular appointment, but
rather than take on the task herself, she’s
wearing a baseball cap to walk her dog until
she can coax Friscioni up for a house call,
something he’s doing with other clients
closer to the city.
“Oh I love my Frank,” Warner said. “I don’t
trust anybody else. Right now I’m mortified
for anybody to see. Emotionally, it means a
lot. I don’t care if I die as long as my hair is
blonde in that coffin.”
Others aremore settled in letting their grey
hair fly. Comedian-actor Kevin Hart uploaded
videos on Instagram chronicling his life at
home with salt-and-pepper hair and beard.
Hashtag: GreyHairDon’tCare.
“Everybody’s going grey. I’m going
to embrace it right now. I look like
Morgan Freeman’s nephew,” he told Ellen
DeGeneres in one of the celebrity phone
chats she’s posting on Instagram from her
Los Angeles home.
For others, styles are going shaggy as
they rediscover ponytails, buns, and dusty
stashes of headbands and hair baubles.
Not the Hinds sisters.
The younger, 18-year-old Sophie, calmly
read a book as her 20-year-old sister, Fiona,
nervously lopped a good seven inches off
her long reddish blonde hair at home on
Manhattan’s Upper West Side, creating an
adorable bob.
Fiona said she boned up for the task
by watching “one YouTube video that we
didn’t even finish. We watched the first
five minutes”.
To which Sophie responded: “Are you
kidding? You didn’t tell me that.”
In Fayetteville, Arkansas, stylist Scarlett
Howell voluntarily cancelled all appointments
for at least two weeks. She’s relying in part on
savings to pay her bills.
“There’s a lot of salon owners and stylists
who refuse to close until it’s mandated, and
so they’re actively putting people at risk,” she
said. “It’s incredibly frustrating.”
Howell doesn’t recommend DIY cuts
or colouring using professional products
that are stronger and trickier than over-the-
counter varieties. “It’s really hard to cut your
own hair,” she said.
Some of her regulars are paying for
their cancelled appointments. “My clients
are my family,” Howell said, breaking down
To cut or not to cut?
In US, quarantine slows everything but hair growth.
Grey hair, don’t care
Cuts and colour lead to home travails.
in tears. “It really means a lot for people to
reach out.”
Kelly Cardenas, who shut down his
salons in Las Vegas, Chicago and Carlsbad,
California, calls the DIY hair experiments
playing out in homes and on social media a
mere “15 minutes of feeling okay that could
take your hairdresser up to a year to fix
″.
Debra Hare-Bey, a braider and stylist
in Brooklyn, said black hair, depending on
texture, length and style, might pose home
challenges for those used to relying on
specialists. Asked how her clients are feeling
now that her home business is closed until
the health emergency subsides, she said: “It’s
pandemonium. Pure and simple. They’ve lost
their minds.”
Mylena Sutton, 43, in Haddonfield, New
Jersey, isn’t ready to take matters into her
own hands. “I’m an African American woman
with very kinky, curly hair that tends toward
being dry. I don’t relax my hair, but I do colour
it and there’s no way in the world that I’m
attempting that at home,” she said. For now,
she’s covering her roots with hats, headbands
and “overall hiding”.
Kody Christiansen, a student at New
York University, went the box-colour route
with a slight mishap, but has no regrets. The
30-something about to graduate with an
associate’s degree was going for platinum,
like the person on the box. He wound up a
brassy yellow instead, but used a silver spray
he had on hand to even out his colour for a
two-tone effect.
“It’s a metaphor for my life,” said the Bronx
actor and author, who until a few years ago
was homeless. “Until recently, my life wasn’t
anything like life on the box.”
Brian Coughlin, 35, in Evanston, Illinois,
usually heads to the barber every eight to 10
weeks. He was about a month overdue when
he asked his wife, Ashley, to try the clippers.
“Huh! huh!” Ashley gasped near the
end of a YouTube video they made during
the process. She forgot to snap on the
appropriate attachment for the clippers
and carved a bald spot into the back of
his hair.
“I’m sorry. I was doing so good,” she said,
to which Brian replied, “It’s okay. Just cut
around it and we’ll see what we can do.”
than embark on experiments that will later
have to be fixed.
“Don’t cut your hair! You’re going to have
more anxiety,” celebrity hairstylist Scotty
Cunha, who has counted the Kardashians
among his clients, said in
Page Six Style
.
This is even more true for chemically dyed
hair. “I worry that some of the individuals
who put products on their head do not
understand the impact of those chemicals,”
said Vice President of Communication for
the Associated Bodywork and Massage
Corporation Leslie Young, an organisation of
workers in the field.
According to Young, some people are “so
desperate” that they insist on going to their
hairdresser’s house or having the stylist come
to their home.
With salons closed, some hairdressers
might be tempted to accept, but Young
strongly advises against the practice, “It’s
dangerous,” she said, and insurance will not
be valid in the event of any issues.
In the meantime, some stylists are trying
to make a little side money by giving their
advice in online videos or directly to their
clients by videoconference.
Even though Americans normally go
every six to eight weeks to the hairdresser,
Young said most seemed resigned to
waiting longer.
And too bad it if means revealing a few
secrets in the meantime, particularly in the
very blond world of television.
Faced with that very prospect, journalist
Kayla Tausche of CNBC tweeted a picture
of herself as a child, “You’re going to find
out soon, and it’s best you hear it from me
directly,” she said.
“I’m a dark brunette.”
Nicole Spuntarilli cuts Stefano Pinto’s hair in his apartment as hair salons and barber shops are
closed during the COVID-19 outbreak in Miami Beach, Florida. PHOTO: AFP
Kody Christiansen before and after colouring his hair in New York. PHOTO: AP