The Power of the Quarantine Haircut
I managed to get one of the last hair appointments before Christmas while salons were still open in London. The third, well, second proper, lockdown was announced while I was in the chair, bleach making my scalp tingle, and I sat reading the news update while one of the staff members called each booking to let them know they no longer could be seen. It felt quite cinematic: I have never had my hair done in the evening before either, and looking up to see a brand new, neon green mullet glowing back from my reflection truly added the last hint of the surreal that was needed to truly make me feel like I was living in some sort of apocalyptic movie.
I was born with a lot of red hair, a dark auburn that in the morning November light looked at first like blood to my unsuspecting Mum. The last people in my family to have been redheads were my Great Grandmother’s siblings, and with my Dad’s darker, easily tanned skin and pretty much black hair, it was the last thing they expected. It’s always been hard to define, appearing brown in winter and copper in summer with strands of blonde, brown eyebrows, dark eyelashes, and armpit hair that is pretty much the colour of Lucozade. It doesn’t quite add up, and left even my biology teacher unwilling to explain its origins — “oh no, that will take too long, it’s too complicated.”
Because of this, and the constant comments that I was so lucky to have it, I never dyed my hair as a teenager. I think I was worried about what my parents would say, but also nervous that losing such a defining feature of mine would somehow strip me of an important part of my identity (I clearly had forgotten my neon orange armpits, which will undoubtedly prove my true colour in an instant). I was quite the emo kid for a long time, and spent my evenings after school reblogging photos of Manic Panic hair dye on Tumblr and dreaming of getting a scene kid hair cut, but I never actually went through with it. At the end of the day, I was also pretty shy - and I felt for a long time that crazy colours or cool cuts were reserved for cooler people. I missed out on the experimental colour stage that a lot of my friends had, and only touched a box dye when helping my friends pick theirs in Superdrug. That was until around 2019 when I finally dipped my toes in with a little bit of bleach and orange highlights. And then, of course, the pandemic hit, and my relationship to hair changed entirely.
The quarantine haircut became both a necessity and a hobby in the first lockdown. It was the longest most of us had gone without being able to access a salon, and it soon was a challenge used to fill time - could we find ingenious ways to maintain our preferred styles from home? Trends circulated on apps like Tiktok of both the successes and mishaps, with hairdressers sharing their opinions and tips. Re-doing fading colour or re-shaping a growing out style seemed to fill people with confidence and give them a new sense of self even in a time as bizarre as this one. I found that learning to maintain my mullet helped me still feel like me.
As with the rest of last spring’s novelties, just maintaining our hair began to lose its sparkle. The lifting of restrictions over summer opened us up to socialising and dressing up again, and tempted us with options of professional cuts, and places to show them off. In this new lockdown, we need something more intense to bring us that sweet hit of serotonin. Coinciding with the current trends online of quarantine looks and extreme styles, people are pushing their hair to the next level as well as their outfits. The quarantine haircut has truly morphed from a fun challenge to a necessary part of our mental health maintenance, a way to grasp onto our identities and self expression in a time where we have so little control over everything else.
There’s a lot to be said for both sides of lockdown living — half of us choose to dress purely for comfort, leaving behind us social rules or work attire, opting instead for what makes us feel the most warm and cosy. The other half use the time to put a look together day in day out, makeup and all. Both make complete sense and help us cope in different ways, and I feel the quarantine haircut is the same. For half of us, this time is a welcome break from the constant pressure to look a certain way — so leaving your hair to do whatever it ends up doing is like a holiday. Not caring is self care, in a lot of ways. For the other half of us, we need to use our bodies as self expression, as a way of reminding us who we are — leading to constant looks complete with outlandish hair, makeup and outfit. Neither option is right or wrong, and you might find yourself working through a combination of the two. All coping mechanisms are valid in unprecedented circumstances.
Leaving the salon that night, I felt renewed. I missed looking like me, and being so aggressively neon green felt like I was finally living my life again. I can’t let it slip now — playing a game with my hair and trying out new things gives me something to do, and is a fun project to share with housemates or family, getting their assistance or ideas with the next style or colour change. It’s a small thing, but we need these tiny fragments of joy to keep positive. I didn’t see my hair as something I could control before - it felt like something I’d been given. Now I see everything as an opportunity for expression, a chance to experiment and have fun and try and grasp some excitement out of existing in this body while I can’t do the usual things that bring me pleasure. I can’t say whether this is a trend that will last, or whether post-COVID we might all begin to settle back into expressing ourselves in other ways. But for now, the quarantine haircut is here to stay, and is a much needed activity bound to bring you a renewed sense of self in this unfathomably dismal time … or at the bare minimum, a much needed laugh.
If you feel like joining in with some quarantine haircut fun, here are some instagram accounts to follow for inspiration!
