WESTLAND, Mass. In this suburb of Boston, the streets remain eerily calm due to coronavirus social isolation guidelines, and yet green shoots of life appear in the midst of an otherwise-pervasive gloom. “There are deer just standing on Route 27, they’ve gotten used to the absence of cars,” says Chief of Police Jim Hampy. “And I had to shoo-away a real estate broker and a housewife from circling Lola’s House of Beauty on Route 30.”
Ground zero
A month into the crisis, America’s roots are showing and it’s not a matter of genealogy, say public health experts. “We are urging women whose hair coloring is about to expire to shelter in place and get a home bleach job,” says Assistant State Commissioner of Cosmetology Nancy de Widmer. “We can’t have people passing around a six-month old copy of People magazine with hair dryers spreading germs all over the place the way we used to in the good old days.”
A “bottle blonde” is a woman who uses bleach or other chemicals to lighten the color of her hair to make her more attractive to shallow men. “It’s a matter of self-esteem,” says Barbara Dandridge-Oehrke, outgoing president of the Westland Middle School PTO. “Yes, it’s expensive, messy, and it takes a lot of time, but it has its drawbacks too.”
America was, until last month, the world’s leader in the consumption of hair care products and services, and some fear that when the COVID-19 pandemic is over it will take years, if not decades, for the nation to regain its pre-eminence in the field. “It used to be I could call up Courtni, my stylist, in the morning and be ready for a Scotch-mixed doubles golf-and-dinner dance at the Sandy Oaks Country Club by 5,” says Miriam Langley, who owns a cards-and-stationery store in town center here. “Now, I have to endure the stares of women who don’t even have a three-car garage, much less a Range Rover.”
The plight of feminine heads locked out of beauty salons for the foreseeable future is drawing sympathy even from those who can’t afford regular “frost jobs,” and thus normally look on their stylish betters with envy. “It’s so sad,” says Ethel Berminster, a cashier at the local grocery store as she watches Chloe Oscar walk out with two bags of food and hair care products. “I don’t know why a woman with such pretty blonde hair would dye her roots black.”
“A “bottle blonde” is a woman who uses bleach or other chemicals to lighten the color of her hair to make her more attractive to shallow men.”
Which, in this context, means “all men.”
Roz (“My roots are showing”) Warren