What My Mom's Friend Taught Me About Hair Color Manufacturers
Diya had always thought hair color was just hair color. You walk into a store, pick a box with a pretty woman on the front, buy it, go home, and use it. That was her entire understanding of the process. She was fifteen, and the most complicated thing she had done to her hair was trim it herself with kitchen scissors, which had not gone well. Her mother's friend Seema aunty ran a small beauty parlor two lanes from their house. Not a big fancy place — just four chairs, two mirrors, a shelf full of products, and a ceiling fan that wobbled slightly when it ran on full speed. But Seema aunty had been doing hair for almost eighteen years, and everyone in the neighborhood trusted her completely. One afternoon Diya went with her mom to the parlor just to wait while her mom got her eyebrows done. She sat in the corner scrolling through her phone when she noticed the shelf of hair color products. They looked completely different from the boxes she had seen at the pharmacy. No glamorous w...