Month: July 2020

Without access to a salon for months during lockdown, I didn’t feel like ‘me’

Andrew M. Santos 2 years ago

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Images supplied by La Carmina.
Images supplied by La Carmina.

I’m a goth fashion and travel blogger, who typically visits a dozen countries a year. However, since Vancouver declared a public health emergency in March, the only trips I’ve made have been from my apartment to the supermarket. 

COVID-19 may have upended my lifestyle, but I’ve been doing OK in lockdown. I finally have time to read sci-fi novels, reconnect with friends through video calls — and I’ve never done so much yoga. But as the weeks passed, there was one thing that was increasingly weighing me down: my hair.

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I was already overdue for a salon visit when the world shut down. Now, I was stuck for the foreseeable

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Cosmetology students, hairstylists describe a race divide

Andrew M. Santos 2 years ago

NEW YORK (AP) — After repeatedly being denied service by high-end salons because her hair was perceived as “too difficult” to style, Kanessa Alexander took an unusual step. She opened a shop of her own in a predominantly white Boston neighborhood with four Black stylists serving all hair textures.

“I wanted to be someplace where we existed but were not represented,” the African American cosmetologist said of her decision five years ago to set up Perfect 10 in West Roxbury, near where she grew up. “So many salons were just seeing a Black person.”

As a racial reckoning unfolds around the globe, Alexander and more than a dozen other people of color in the beauty industry trace such bias and discrimination in mostly white salons to the sidelining of formal education on tightly curled, coiled or kinky hair.

The lack of experience, or interest, is particularly acute when it comes

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3 New York City businesses on what it’s been like reopening in the first U.S. epicenter of the pandemic

Andrew M. Santos 2 years ago

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New York City quickly became the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States this past spring. As the novel coronavirus has spread rapidly elsewhere nationwide, New York has been able to bring cases down and began to reopen businesses this summer, making it a possible blueprint for other American cities once they have the virus under control.

Anyone who has ventured out to a store or small business that is not a grocery store or a pharmacy (which are also quite different than they used to be but remained open during the shutdown) knows that retail experiences and services are not like what they once were. There are a lot of new rules put in place to keep customers and employees safe, which might

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New Salon Opens In Fairfield: ‘We’ve Taken Every Precaution’

Andrew M. Santos 2 years ago

FAIRFIELD, CT — Wendy Brown calls her Fairfield salon “the little shop that could.”

Originally scheduled to open this winter, the Fairfield launch of Pink Soda Blow Dry Bar & Salon was delayed by the coronavirus pandemic, which for months forced the closure of salons statewide. Now, the beauty industry is back open, and the business at 2475 Black Rock Turnpike started offering services last week.

“It’s set up in a way that’s very intimate,” said Brown, who owns four Pink Soda locations across Fairfield County, and described the Fairfield location as “very boutique.”

With only three salon chairs, Brown wanted to create a one-on-one experience in Fairfield where customers would feel pampered and safe.

“When they come in, they’re nervous, they’re scared, they haven’t been in for a while, so it’s more about catering to their needs,” Brown said. “… We’ve taken every precaution and then some.”

Connecticut mandates

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