SACRAMENTO COUNTY, Calif. — Hair salons are nonessential businesses during California's stay at home order, so some stylists are helping out by dropping off hair color at clients homes or giving advice on how to cut hair.
Now that the order has been in place for several weeks, many are feeling the need to dye their hair or get a cut. The hashtag #ShowYourRoots has been circulating on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook encouraging people to embrace their natural hair color during this pandemic because salons have closed.
"We are just really wanting to see people keep that social distancing going. let your roots show," said Melanie Wade, a hairdresser in Seattle with more than 30 years of experience. Wade is also the mother of ABC10's Madison Wade.
Melanie and Randy Evans, hair dressers for a combined 60 years, had clients ask for help during this time even though they aren't working.
"We are getting people who are asking salons if they can send them or put together kits of professional products that we use in the salon and there are two challenges to this," Wade said.
She said there's liability in the event a client has an accident, reaction or exposure to the chemicals without proper care.
"Not only is a detriment to my client but it's a detriment to the industry as a whole. we are asking other hair dressers to have solidarity. it's kind of cool. show us your roots," Wade emphasized.
Evans and Wade both say box hair color is not a good idea for a quick fix.
"There's a reason it's $19 versus what we charge," Evans, salon owner of the Collective Salon, said. "One of the reasons the dyes that are in there are usually equivalent to carpet dye or fabric dye, and that type of dye never comes out of hair."
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He said it could take two to three visits to get it out and at least hundreds of dollars to redo your hair properly.
Instead there are semi-permanent options like semi-permanent foam or powder for root touch ups. Like hair color should be, Wade said this situation we are in, is also temporary.
"I think a lot of this has to do with the emotions that people are feeling right now," Wade said. "It's almost as though, if you aren't feeling well and are depressed, if you look at yourself and you look less than what you normally look like, it's like a double whammy. We all want to feel better, and looking better is a step in that direction."
Follow the conversation on Facebook with Madison Wade.
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