Kathmandu

More than a month into the lockdown, his hair was getting long. Basanta Budhathoki was bothered how his long hair touched his ears. As all barber shops were closed due to the lockdown, the 23-year-old couldn’t get a haircut. Luckily for him, a barber was visiting a neighbour. Taking this as an opportunity, he shaved his head.

“You don’t know how long the lockdown will go on for,” Budhathoki says. So, “I shaved my head so that I wouldn’t need haircut repeatedly.”

In almost 60 days of lockdown, we have not been inside a barber shop or salon which we frequented. Though appearance is the last thing on our mind right now, we can’t ignore it completely.

Shrinjan Pradhan from Satungal is annoyed by his growing hair. He used to visit a barber twice or thrice a month to maintain his side-slope hairstyle. But now his hair is growing from both sides and “it is getting itchy as well as hot”.

And the 18-year-old is looking forward to the end of lockdown so that he can get his hair done.

Also looking forward to beauty parlours and salons reopening is Sona KC — to get a haircut and fix her eyebrows. “I keep my hair short, but now it is reaching my shoulders. I can’t wait to cut it,” she shares.

The 24-year-old used to frequent a salon once every two weeks to get her eyebrows done and a facial. Since the lockdown she has been shaping her eyebrows with use-and-throw razor and a few accidents. “My eyebrow trimmer became blunt, and I can’t buy another now. I have been using a use-and-throw razor, learning to use it from YouTube. I couldn’t get the desired shape and I also cut my skin slightly,” she reveals of her mishap.

Bushy eyebrows, growing hair, split ends, coloured hair gone awry, acne — these are common problems that the lockdown has aggravated.

Heena Shakya, 24, had coloured her hair three years ago. The golden brown shade remains and “it is looking rough”.

“I want to cut it as well as colour my hair,” she shares looking forward to the end of lockdown.

Twenty-year-old Riya Gurung has long hair and is suffering from split ends. “I trimmed my hair myself,” shares Gurung, who is an aspiring make-up artiste.

She shares her eyebrows have gone “bushy” but she maintains those with the help of tweezers.

There is no option now than using tweezers to keep her eyebrows tidy, as per 39-year-old Sapna Shrestha.

“We can’t thread ourselves,” shares the resident of Buddhanagar who used to visit a salon twice in a month for threading, facial and hair treatment. As for her facial and hair treatment, she uses ingredients like aloe vera, coffee available at home.

Menuka Hayu, 23, used to take care of her personal grooming herself. As such lockdown has not posed a problem for her grooming-wise. Rather she shares she has been “productive”. She wakes up and works out first thing in the morning for 30 minutes. She has a “strict skin-care routine”.

In the morning, “I wash my face with face wash, then I apply toner, Vitamin C serum, moisturiser and sun block.”

She rubs ice cubes on her skin in the evening.

As face masks and exfoliators are not available, so she is making those at home and using twice a week. “I am using homemade masks from honey and turmeric, and honey and coffee for the glow. Honey and coffee can also be used as a scrub.”

Gurung is also using home remedies for her skin, especially the “glow-up trend I have seen many people posting on social media”.

However, Priyanka Bakhati, 20, is going all natural. “We can grow our hair, even our eyebrows. We can make it a trend,” she shares and that is what she is doing.

In fact she says her skin and hair look great now as she has not stepped out of her house and with a little bit of home remedies. “I have not had to face the dust and pollution,” she says, “I had quite bad acne on my face. It has lessened.”

A version of this article appears in e-paper on May 22, 2020 of The Himalayan Times.