STYLING AT A STANDSTILL
As COVID-19 shutters salons, Edmontonians are left wondering, ‘should I cut it myself?’
But whatever you do, don’t cut your own hair
If you feel you need to take some length off, have someone you’re living with cut it even a quarter of an inch, dry, and straight across.
Hairy necks, sheepdog bangs, and stripey roots. These are but a few signs of styling stress as Edmontonians end another week without a visit to the salon or barber.
The province announced hairstylists would have to close shop on March 27. Since then, internet searches for “how to cut your own hair” have spiked, as men and women alike wonder just how long they can bear to wear an unflattering hat. Across the city, stylists have responded with their best advice on taking a pair of scissors to your increasingly beddy-head. Don’t. Just don’t.
After all, hair only grows at the rate of about a half-inch a month, according to owner Bonnie Grimmon, who usually has 28 staff at her salon and spa, The Gilded Pear.
So even if the pandemic restrictions last three months, that’s just an inch and a half of excess. (Unless you were in need of help long before the closures and are now looking like Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men, in which case, hack away.)
But if the same compulsion that leads to a deep dive into a jar of Nutella overcomes you, get a friend to help. And cut it dry.
“If you feel you need to take some length off, have someone you’re living with cut it even a quarter of an inch, dry, and straight across,” says Grimmon.
“Don’t do it wet because your hair will shrink and you’ll have bangs you regret.”
She suggests now is the perfect time to grow hair out if you’ve been wanting to embrace your old hair colour (even if it’s grey). Or if you want to try a new colour, growing out the old now is an equally good approach.
“The more regrowth we have, the better it is to change the colour,” says Grimmon. “There are a lot of positives to the situation as well.”
To help clients get through a tetchy time, Grimmon is selling pampering hair products from the curb in front of her west-end business, maintaining a safe distance even as she shouts out words of encouragement to clients.
Other local stylists and owners have followed suit; some are even mixing up formulations they have on file for their clients, and putting them in a bowl, paired with a brush, gloves and instructions, so customers can do touch-ups at home.
Yvonne Squires is one such lifesaver. She emphasizes that the formulations are only to keep roots from taking on an embarrassing hue and that clients should think twice before using boxed colour from the drugstore. Remember, it can cost $100 an hour for a professional stylist to fix a colour problem created elsewhere.
“I don’t want to have to fix you, and you don’t have to pay for corrective work when you come back,” says Squires.
Now is the time to play around with your hair, knowing you won’t be met with snickers because you rarely leave the house. Scrunchies, a signature of the 1980s, are back in style and a wide variety of clips available at the drugstore are an easy way to glam-up. Bangs that are getting in your eyes can be pushed over to the side, perhaps with a new part. There are plenty of videos on Youtube with instructions on messy up-dos, and beachy curls.
Think Velcro curlers. But avoid clippers.
“It’s probably not a good thing to do; you’ll end up with little holes here and there,” says Squires, who works with four other stylists and two estheticians at Luscious on 142 St. and 111 Ave.
Squires says she’s been keeping in touch with her clients via social media, not only to offer hair advice when asked, but also because she misses her people.
“Our business is not just about doing hair,” she says. “It’s about being there for people. We’re such a social industry.”
Danielle Cherewyk — a Grande Prairie stylist and owner of two branches of The Headroom — has been reaching out to customers, and the media, to spread the gospel of good hair during the pandemic. She, too, has been offering pickup kits for root touch-ups and “tones” — a glossy finish that removes brassiness from blond, and red from brunette.
“We’ve been getting a great response,” says Cherewyk.
She also recommends trying new styling creams and gels if hair feels out of control, which can make a real difference, especially for men.
While it’s tempting to throw hair up into a “mom-bun” and wait out the virus, says Cherewyk, hair can have an effect on mental health.
“We just had a client tell us she was feeling down, but (after a treatment) she feels like herself. Our hair is how we present ourselves, and how we express our personal style.”
Anyone who thinks hair isn’t important need only reflect on the impassioned speech made to a stylist by Fleabag star and creator Phoebe Waller-bridge, in episode five, season two, after her sister emerged from a salon looking “like a pencil.”
“Hair is everything. We wish it wasn’t so we could actually think about something else occasionally. But it is.
“It’s the difference between a good day and a bad day. We’re meant to think that it’s a symbol of power, that it’s a symbol of fertility … Hair is everything.”
But, hair also grows back, for free, which is a great comfort to local do-it-yourselfer and coffee shop owner Brian Flowers, who recently took clippers to his rusty mane because he wanted to see what it looked like.
“And now I know,” says Flowers, who has been hiding under a tuque ever since.
That was a week ago. Since then, a hint of red has already emerged.
“Straight, clean bald is not something I liked. But now I am a bit more fuzzy. And it’s growing on me.”