Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz (PML-N) MPA Sadia Taimoor has submitted a resolution in the Punjab Assembly seeking opening of beauty parlours and hairdressers’ shops in the province.
According to reports, the resolution read: “This sector gives huge amount in terms of taxes to the government, they should be allowed to do business after adopting precautionary measures amid coronavirus outbreak.”
It further said that millions of people are employed in the beauty industry and closure of such businesses is denting the economy and creating hurdles for people.
The Government of Punjab has extended the lockdown till April 14 in a move to control over spread of novel coronavirus.
Meanwhile, the closure of beauty parlours has not only affected lives in Pakistan, but AFP reported that the demand for some brands of hair colour shot up six times in Britain after the first week of the lockdown there.
However, stylists and colourists have advised people not to experiment too much, especially when it comes to the hair and eyebrows.
“Don’t touch your eyebrows above all,” pleaded Olivier Echaudemaison, creative director of the French cosmetics brand Guerlain.
“Let them grow — leave a virgin forest,” said the man who once looked after makeup for screen legends Audrey Hepburn and Sophia Loren.
Feel free to experiment with makeup, Echaudemaison told AFP, because “if it doesn’t work you just take a tissue and you start again”.
“But anything with hair is a lot more risky,” he warned.
Beauty experts are also advising people not to fall for gimmicks and other hacks they read on the social media, such a beetroot to dye hair.
Social media is full of horror stories of people posting their failed attempts at cutting and colouring their own hair.
French stylist Thomas Girard has been giving up to six free online courses a day to deal with this aesthetic emergency. His advice is to stop immediately if you make a mistake. “The biggest error is thinking that you can fix your mistake by keeping cutting,” he said.
As for roots, he advises just letting them go grey.
“It’s no longer a marker of age, or stigmatising” — in fact, it could be seen as body positive, he argued.
