The do-it-yourself hairdo has become increasingly common in Steinbach in recent months but, rather than taking away business, local hairdressers are seeing more customers as a result.

Phoenix Salon Owner Brook-Lynn Reimer blames the trend of unusually bad hair on the COVID-19 pandemic. To avoid public spaces and the associated risk of contracting the virus, she says many people are trying to be their own hairdresser and, in many cases, it does not work out as planned. Almost every single day since the Manitoba Government loosened COVID-19 restrictions, allowing salons to reopen, she says her store has had customers come in who have obviously tried to trim their own bangs or layer their own locks but to no avail.

Typically, Reimer says, a wannabe barber can be identified not by their hair, but by their sheepish demeanor when they first walk into the salon.

“They come in with their heads down and they exclaim: ‘Look what I did!’” she laughs. “A lot of the time people apologize too, but we always fix it; we always find a way.”

Reimer says her staff are always happy to help make course corrections and always enjoy hearing the stories which led up to them. Sometimes she notes, a wife has made a few mistakes on her husband's scalp, sometimes it is the man himself who misshaves, and still other times young kids, inspired by their parents’ bold scissor work, attempt the hairy feat for themselves and end up with an outcome that is humorously awful.

“A couple of weeks ago we had a little girl come in and she had completely given herself a mullet: business in the front, party in the back,” she says citing the classic mullet axiom. “We fixed that one up by turning it into a cute pixie cut because there was not all that much else we could do.”

Her advice to uncertain amateurs is simple: just put those scissors down and leave it to the professionals.

Sandals Day Spa & Hair says they have observed a very similar phenomenon. Shear Effects, meanwhile, says their percentage of guests sporting misshapen “done-at-home” haircuts has declined slowly since their shop reopened in May.