ELLE
Hair salon closures have affected the beauty community both financially and emotionally. Black salons, a haven for women of color, are where clients go for more than 10-hour braid jobs, the presses, and deep conditioning treatments. These salons have long served as community staples for weekly check-ins with friends and are a part of Black women's routines they just can't miss. But when Covid-19 struck, many Black women began taking hair matters into their own hands— literally.
At the beginning of the pandemic, the sentiment surrounding salon closures was clear: This is only temporary and our salons will be back. Now, more than a year later, Black women have been forced to replicate—or at least attempt to replicate—the salon experience from home. Many have found that experimentation with their own hair has been both fun and therapeutic. "The second week of January 2021, I asked my husband to buzz my hair with his clippers," explains Shazmin Taylor a podcaster from New Jersey. "It was beyond cathartic for me, entering my first year without my parents, and was symbolic of how my partner supported me through it all, downright to this freeing moment of starting over."