As we ease back into normal life salon treatments are comforting – but there’s a chance they will never feel the same again
I was so keen for my post-lockdown trim last Saturday that I arrived at George Northwood’s salon just off London’s Oxford Street 20 minutes early. At the check-in point, instead of offering me a coffee, they took my temperature. I felt a brief jolt of greedy disappointment, because in the old days you used to get a tiny bar of chocolate with your coffee. But I was still so happy to be there that I made a terrible joke about being cool enough to come in, which the receptionist kindly pretended to laugh at from behind his visor.
I hate the word “pampering”, with its frilly talcum-powder overtones. (“Grooming” is even worse. What is this, Crufts?) And yet I was thrilled when I put that hair appointment in my still-barren diary. And while I’m typing this article with overgrown cuticles, that is only because my local beauty salon is fully booked for manicures and pedicures till later this week.
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