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Beauty parlours and salons are still closed in Delhi, Mumbai and many other Covid-19 containment zones and Zoom meetings are still on.
Are tweezers your friends? If they weren’t, maybe now they are. Missing parlour wali didi yet?
“My eyebrows are on their way to touch my eyelids. The shape of my brother’s eyebrows is probably better than mine,” says Shatabdi Chowdhury, who works for a media house in Delhi.
She suggested starting a social media challenge where people would “proudly” post their pictures showing how they look (especially with facial hair) during the lockdown when there’s almost no access to parlours, salons and spas. She, however, dropped the idea a few minutes later. “Kind of embarrassing, let’s skip,” she said.
“Tweezers, of course. Every time I have to participate in a video meeting, I put on make-up. Even a little BB cream and a nice eyeliner do the trick,” says Shikha Khanna, founder of a Gurugram-based startup.
Swati Chaudhary, a teacher conducting online classes, says, “once I had by mistake bought a tiny eyebrow razor while shopping online. It was lying in the corner of some never-opened drawer. Guess what, it is now coming in handy. Who ever knew?”
Aishwarya Parikh, a Chennai-based video journalist, says “I’ve stopped giving close-up shots, and then of course, there’s makeup to the rescue if it is absolutely necessary.”
She does get conscious of the facial hair while on camera, but “even if parlours have reopened in the city, I can’t risk contracting the virus by going there.”
They say inside beauty is what matters the most, well, it’s easier said than done.
Lockdown has been a hard time for everyone, more so for people, who are managing household chores, without any assistance from domestic helps like earlier, alongside working for home.
Office work has always been demanding, however, many people were able to catch a break by a visit to a salon or spa that would not only relax their body but also help them get a refreshing look, be it by shaping eyebrows, a new haircut, a foot massage or a facial treatment for glowing skin.
“It’s like losing out on me time,” says Dr. Hemal Vajani, a clinical hypnotherapist.
At a time when work-from-home has become the new normal and is likely to continue in the weeks to come, people have no choice but to engage in video meetings.
Jyoti, a Faridabad-based beautician says, “ I keep getting calls from people to enquire when I’ll reopen the parlour but not many take appointments. We are both scared of the touching involved in beauty treatments that puts us at a risk of contracting the disease.”
Her business has taken a massive hit and the crisis is far from over. Since she’s got rent and kids’ school fee to pay, she finally opened her parlour two days ago and is taking only two appointments a day. She uses the gap between appointments to sanitise the space.
There are a lot of DIY videos doing the rounds on social media but there’s only so much time one can dedicate to such activities when you know those dishes are waiting in the sink or that pressure cooker is chasing you with all the whistling or that laptop keyboard is waiting to be hit on. So, tweezers it is.
Vajani says “it’s not easy because we live with a lot of people around us who are going to react if they’re not used to seeing us in a particular manner. Any difference in physical appearance shows on video calls and then the judgment follows.”
Given the mental and emotional stress during the lockdown, even a slightest judgement can bring down some people’s morale, according to the doctor.
“It’s not that the judgment by itself is an issue, but already one is struggling with his/her confidence and image as a person. When one doesn’t feel worthy, then that limited judgment can affect the person’s self esteem,” Vajani told hindustantimes.com.
However, the doctor suggested that lockdown can act as a period when people can grow out of the esteem they derive from beauty treatments and physical appearance because ultimately it is all about how they feel about themselves.
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