HOST INTRO: When hair salons and barbershops closed due COVID, it left many people to upkeep their own appearances. A study done by Nielsen has revealed heath and beauty products spiked 20% when the pandemic hit. As someone who considers themselves active on most social media platforms, I’ve noticed that spike trending on social media as well. Especially on TikTok, where teens and young adults have used the same sounds to show off their new hairdos, and sometimes it was the same hairdo.
AMBI: TikTok Scott Pilgram Vs The World original sound
TRACK 1: Up until COVID, my younger sister, Emperatriz had virgin hair. Her hair-dying journey began in June and ended in October and since then she had peach, purple, pink, and orange hair. She says that sometimes her hair came out great, other times though..
EMPERATRIZ: Orange. Orange was gross and you guys really let me leave (the house) like that. I thought it was cute and then one day I just looked in the mirror and I was like omg I look like an oompa loompa. You know the old one from like Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.
Track 2: Although she says it’s been fun for her to try new things, her hair has unfortunately become very damaged. So, in hopes of having healthy hair again, our mom is chopping all her hair off in our kitchen.
AMBI: Scissors cutting her hair
EMPERATRIZ: I’ve done it more as a form of discovery. Not so much expression but discovery. To see what I like.
Track 3: She also plans on dying her hair back to brown. She says she never really felt like herself with different hair colors.
EMPERATRIZ: We didn’t have many options. We couldn’t do anything. We’re all home so you couldn’t really change much in your daily lifestyle, except for how you look.
TRACK 4: I’m here in Ossining, Upstate New York with some friends of mine who are also sisters. I follow them on Instagram and noticed that they’ve dyed their hair a lot during the pandemic. Now I’m sitting on their couch, talking to Paola Sosa, about her hair journey.
Paola: First I was a blonde then I did a platinum blonde, after that I don’t know what inspired me… OH I was in Ulta and I was looking at all these colors and I was like well fuck it, I’m already at a platinum blonde.
TRACK 5: Paola has never done bright bold colors or even cut her hair above her shoulder before. It’s the first time she tells me she’s stepped out of her comfort zone. She used to have long dark brown hair and has only ever done lighter shades of brown. Since COVID she had blonde, silver, fuchsia, purple, royal blue, and ivy green hair. Here’s Paola talking about her first experience attempting to dye her hair purple.
Paola: It didn’t come out the way I wanted it to. I wasn’t going for a fuchsia but it turned out like a fuchsia kind of purple. I think I had like 4 weeks with that kind of color.
Track 6: Paola’s hair journey was a trial and error process. She has dyed her hair over 10 times since the beginning of the pandemic and there’s no stopping her, she is still excited to try new colors.
Paola : I started dying my hair during COVID and all the beauty supplies were close so I had to resort to CVS box dyes. That didn’t really do much, I literally dyed it five times to get it lighter and lighter, and then finally when the beauty supplied open I got actual bleach so I can actually bleach my hair. That was not so great like my hair felt so nasty afterwards but I don’t know, I didn’t really give a fuck. I started dying my hair because everything was a mess and I don’t know, it was a way to gain control.
AMBI: Schaddai speaking on hair
TRACK 7: Now I’m speaking to her older sister, Schaddai Sosa, who has experience with dying her hair prior to COVID. In the past, she had blonde ombre, grey, and purple hair. She has even shaved it all off before. And as of more recently, she’s had blonde highlights
Schaddai: Before I shaved it off, I was actually trying to grow it out but then that year, it was 2017. It was like a really hard year for me so I felt like a lot of that was carried on through my hair and so I just wanted to get rid of that energy and so I just buzzed it all off and honestly, it was like the best feeling. It definitely helped me feel a lot better.
TRACK 8: For many people dying and cutting their hair is a way to make themselves feel better. Like after a breakup, it’s not just to make themselves look better, it’s empowering for them.
Schaddai: I feel like during quarantine I don’t feel like I had a negative relationship with my hair at all. I feel like a lot of the times you do things for some sense of control and so because we were in quarantine and there was nothing I can do about that, there was nothing I can do with what’s going on in the world. What I could do was change an aspect of myself in the comfort of my own home without worrying about what anyone else was going to think. It was to have some control in life and also just some change. Because I couldn’t change anything else, I could change my hair and have that be different and have that be that exciting thing in life for me personally.
TRACK 9: Schaddai say that if it weren’t for her being so bored during quarantine she probably wouldn’t have dyed her hair
AMBI: TikTok sounds- I’m not gon do it girl… I did it
Schaddai: I had kind of like a balayage but like home… yea definitely not professionally done, but I was inspired by Kylie Jenner. Obviously my own way with colors that are more suited to my skin tone cause I’m definitely a lot darker than she is. Social media definitely serves as inspo and even just as guidance because you can youtube anything nowadays. It definitely helps to have somebody that you can watch from the comfort of your home. For that reassurance that I could do this by myself. I did have my hair how I wanted at some point. And that was awesome to just do that by yourself .
Track 10: Schaddai says that if it weren’t for her past experiences with her hair, she wouldn’t have developed the relationship she has with it now to dye and cut it freely.
Schaddai: Hair is just hair so at the end of the day it can grow out, I can start fresh. I’m not scared of that anymore. There’s not that attachment. It is part of who I am and the energy I carry but at the same time I know that I can always start fresh if things go wrong. That gives me the confidence to just dye it.
Track 11: Quarantine hair is the freedom of dying and cutting your hair at the expense of frying your hair and looking a hot mess, but not caring because no one has to see you. These women took that chance to take their control back, to try new things, to feel better and to just do it because they can and they want to.
AMBI: Music
Track 12: This is Quarantine Hair by Shamadi Ojeda from Baruch College
AMBI: Music