How Irish women stayed beautiful during lockdown

41% of women surveyed said they would embrace a more natural look

As we venture back to our usual routine of getting our hair done, perhaps even booking a facial, we wanted to find out how everyone managed with the lack of usual services. A survey carried out by our sister website, EVOKE.ie, asked 1,200 Irish women how they managed through the lockdown with DIY beauty and how spending habits have changed.

As beauty editor at EVOKE, the results threw up some interesting information, not least because 76% of respondents really embraced lockdown beauty at home, giving themselves an average rating of 3.1 out of 5 stars for effect.

Because hair has been such a hot topic throughout the quarantine period, we asked them how they previously coloured their hair before March 2020. Salon goers amounted to 61%, with the majority of those visiting their colourist every two to five months for a touch-up.

Only 20% coloured their own hair at home, but some women did switch to shop-bought box dye in the months during lockdown.

When asked if they had suffered from any beauty disaster during that time 70% said they did not. Of the 17 per cent who did, the majority involved hair dye followed by haircuts, and over-plucking brows made up the rest. Thankfully, all three will grow back, but a bad hair colour will take the longest to grow out.

Now that we are looking to head back to our favourite salons for some much-needed beauty treatments, we asked the 1,200 participants whether they had any apprehensions about returning.

Almost half (48%) said they were confident their regular salon would have every safety protocol in place, but 60% did admit they would like to see images or a video from the businesses to show the changes they’ve made.

The survey, carried out by EVOKE at the end of May, discovered that 46% of those asked already had an appointment booked, and more than half of the 1,200 missed having their treatments.

The most interesting fact for me was how many women would carry on with a more natural look after restrictions end. Surprisingly, 41% said that they would but 56% answered a resolute ‘no’ to that question. Irish women love their beauty and getting their hair done, not that we were ever in doubt about that!

For regular beauty news online, check out evoke.ie, which is Ireland’s premier website for women with 1.3 million unique users every month,