Toilet paper and hand sanitizer are so last month.
When it comes to panic buying during the coronavirus outbreak, people are going back to their roots.
Hair dye is flying off the shelves, along with hair clippers, as graying, shaggy Americans — desperate to maintain their manes — turn to DIY measures.
“People are starting to need a haircut,” Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said on NBC’s “Today” show. “You see more beard trimmers and hair color and things like that. You can definitely see that as people have stayed home, their focus shifted. It’s interesting to watch the dynamic play out.”
Sales of hair clippers have jumped a whopping 166% from a year ago, and hair-coloring products have climbed 23%, Nielsen figures show.
At-home styling is the product of many salons nationwide being forced to close because of lockdown restrictions. Closing down has put shop owners in a financial squeeze but many, like New York colorist Rita Hazan, understand the sacrifice.
“I think this too shall pass, and as soon as we can open our doors and know that it is safe, business will get back to normal [especially] with people with roots or folks in need of correcting what they did at home by themselves,” Hazan told Glamour.