A note from Charlotte: I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the importance of loose-tie relationships like those we have with our hairstylists. The COVID-19 pandemic and quarantine have definitely affected our sense of loneliness and belonging. I imagine many of us miss our hairstylists, our bartenders, and our servers at our favorite restaurants, and the ways they help us feel like we belong.

Lisa Brown approached me after I spoke to a group of mothers about loneliness. “You’ve given me more understanding of what I deal with every day.” Ms. Brown is the owner of Salon Lisa Brown in McCalla, Alabama, a town on the edge of the greater Birmingham metropolitan area. “A lot of my clients are lonely.” She told me many of her clientele have had weekly hair appointments for several years or even since childhood. Having their hair done is the one thing they do for themselves, especially during seasons of difficulty or when they face serious health problems or financial crises.

Some of Ms. Brown’s clients see her more than they see members of their extended family. “We spend about two hours a week together. That’s a lot of time. So I can tell when my clients are lonely.” A few of her regulars even tell her about their loneliness. They may say, “I don’t have any friends” or “I don’t like people” or “I haven’t talked to my family in 10 years.”

When someone purchases extra services they don’t need—like unnecessary deep conditioning treatments—it’s a sign that they might be struggling with loneliness. Some of her clients drop by her salon to chat or sit in the lobby for a while even when they don’t have an appointment.

This pattern has prompted Ms. Brown to think more about how her clients use her salon space. She recently bought some land and will be expanding. The waiting area in her new building will be twice the size of her existing waiting area so her clients will be more comfortable while they hang out, read magazines, drink complimentary coffee, and talk to each other--even if they don’t have a scheduled hair appointment. Ms. Brown wants her salon to be a place where people are welcome to connect with others regardless of how lonely they might feel.

Salons and barbershops have long been places that provide positive opportunities for people to converse and enjoy a sense of community while caring for themselves. If nearly half of the adults in the United States are lonely, it’s not outside of the realm of possibility that nearly 50% of a hair stylist’s clientele may be experiencing feelings of loneliness and isolation. So, while stylists wash, dry, cut, and color, they may also provide comfort.

The role stylists play in loose-tie relationships with their clients influences why people turn to hairstylists in their loneliness. Dr. Mario Luis Small, the Grafstein Family Professor of Sociology at Harvard University, conducted a large-sample survey of 2,010 respondents on how and why people confide in others. In his 2017 book Someone to Talk To, Dr. Small wrote about his findings in which he observed that adult Americans often turn to loose-tie relationships like those they have with hairstylists because it’s a safer bet. Dr. Small likened hair stylists to a stranger on a plane: “Hairstylists are just close enough and just far away enough that anything you tell them won’t come back to haunt you.” Even if you have a large supportive family structure, you might prefer to tell your hairstylist what’s really going on in your life. If you tell a cousin or an aunt or a grandfather about your very personal circumstances, the entire family might end up hearing about it. And sometimes our closer and more intimate relationships are so complex that it seems easier to discuss difficult topics with someone you have a very bounded relationship with. Dr. Small also believes there’s a special kind of trust that you have in your hairstylist because your hair is important. “If your stylist screws up, you’re in trouble. But there’s also an additional layer of trust because stylists have a license to touch their clients.”

While hairstylists are safe confidants for their clients, there are additional relational benefits. A 2014 study published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin found that social interactions with people who are loose-tie members of our social networks improve our emotional well-being. Relationships and conversations with acquaintances help us feel like we are a part of something larger than ourselves, give us a greater sense of connectedness, and enhance our quality of life.

Some people view their appointments with their hairstylists as opportunities to be seen, known, and heard. One stylist has a client who’s a mother of a child with special needs. She made an appointment for a treatment that takes four hours—a service that she doesn’t usually get or need. When the woman walked in, the stylist said with suspicion, “You don’t get straightening treatments.” Her client told her she looked for the longest appointment she could find so she could just hang out with grownups.

But many hairstylists aren’t prepared for the relational aspects of their work when they enter the profession. “People who come into this industry are generally young artists who want to be fabulous,” said Oliver Bacchus, a hairstylist and the owner of Studio Oliver in Atlanta. “They want to be image creators and they just don’t know what they’re getting into because hairdressing and working in a salon are about human interaction.”

Mr. Bacchus has seen loneliness in many of his clients, and sometimes he’s the only person his clients are talking to about their feelings of isolation. Mr. Bacchus says this level of trust, along with the amount of human touch stylists provide to their clients, creates intimacy and honesty. “You’re able to be more honest with someone who you feel a connection with, so people confide in us. This is what I’ve seen for years and years. And I love it. It’s one reason I do what I do.”

Mr. Bacchus says he sees loneliness and depression in women whose husbands are having affairs, in women who are having affairs, in moms with new babies, in single moms. He’s heard it all. And sometimes he’s been the only person who’s heard. Mr. Bacchus loves the relationships he has with his clients. He says, “I’m here to build them up. When a woman sits in my chair, I don’t break her down. I make her look beautiful and I relate to her and she leaves feeling better than she did when she arrived.”

A 2019 study done by the research agency OnePoll and Regis Salons in the United Kingdom found that more than half of the 2000 women surveyed tell their hairdresser things they don’t tell anyone else. Jackie Lang, Managing Director at Regis, said: “It’s a wonderful and quite powerful relationship – the bond between a person and their hairstylist. By visiting a hair salon you are already trusting them with your hair, which is a big step for many people.” Ms. Lang was surprised by how many British women were willing to share their deepest secrets with someone they interact with for a short period of time.

Some stylists wish they received more direction and education about the relational components of serving their clients when they were training for their careers. Lindsey Kidd of Houston recalls the only advice she received from one of her mentors was to not talk about politics or religion. And that advice wasn’t very helpful. In her practice, she doesn’t keep those topics off-limits. "Being a part of someone's self-care is an intimate experience, so it seems natural and appropriate to talk about politics or religion if that's what my clients want to discuss. It feels right to go there."

For hairstylists who want training on how to relate to clients who suffer from loneliness, Mental Health First Aid is one option they can consider. The National Council for Behavioral Health brought Mental Health First Aid training to the United States in 2007. Since then, they have trained 1.6 million Americans, including several hairdressers.

Betsy Schwartz, Vice President of Education and Strategic Initiatives for the National Council for Behavioral Health, says Mental Health First Aid teaches people how to listen without casting judgment and how to create a space where others feel safe talking about their feelings. Their classes provide several scenarios for participants to practice these skills.

Ms. Schwartz adds, “If someone says ‘I’m feeling lonely because my husband died,’ there are ways to engage with empathy in a non-judgmental way that will validate their feelings. You can respond by saying, ‘I can only imagine how you’re feeling’ or ‘Tell me more about how you’re feeling.’ Making a safe space for people to talk about their feelings can actually help them feel better.”

Mental Health First Aid is an evidence-based program. That means there’s research that shows their participants learn what they are supposed to learn, they retain the information, and they use it. Ms. Schwartz wants Mental Health First Aid training to be as common as CPR training. She believes hairstylists who are trained in Mental Health First Aid can make it less shameful and less fearful for their clients to open up about hard things. Those who are trained can also better ascertain if their clients’ signs of loneliness are symptoms of depression or other forms of mental illness.

Alicia Amsler, a stylist and owner of Alicia’s Salon and Day Spa in Richmond, Virginia has given a lot of thought to the inner lives of her clients because of an experience she had a few years ago. In 2007, Ms. Amsler fired one of her top hairdressers because of performance issues that she later discovered were related to mental health problems. Ms. Amsler didn’t understand the symptoms of mental illness back then. She just saw an employee who wasn’t doing what she was supposed to be doing. A year later, the employee returned to the salon to make amends with Ms. Amsler. Three days later the young woman took her life. “It’s not that I did anything wrong,” Ms. Amsler explains. “I just didn’t know. I didn’t know this young woman was struggling with mental health issues.”

In 2017, after more experiences with loved ones and acquaintances who sometimes struggled with loneliness and also suffered from the negative effects of mental illness, Ms. Amsler started the non-profit organization Runway2Life that holds a yearly fashion show that raises money to help people in the beauty industry and other service industries become more aware of the signs of mental illness. In partnership with the National Alliance of Mental Health, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, and LivingWorks, Runway 2 Life trains hairdressers and others to speak up when they suspect there might be a problem. They learn how to have better conversations, how to notice the signs of depression, and how to get those who are suffering the resources they need. Ms. Amsler is working to expand Runway2Life’s training and education offerings to salons and hairdressers beyond Virginia.

While Ms. Kidd hasn’t received any formal training on providing a safe space for her clients and speaking with them in a non-judgmental way, she’s definitely on the right track. She recalled a story about how a man contacted her to set up a haircut appointment for his wife. She had recently come in for one, so Ms. Kidd was confused at first. He shared that he and his wife had recently lost their child and that his wife had not left their home since the funeral. The second Ms. Kidd’s hands touched her client’s head in the shampoo bowl, the grieving mother burst into tears.

“I just held my hands there for a minute and let the tears stream,” she said. “I gave her one of the longest shampoos of my career.”

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I’d love your thoughts! Does your hairstylist help you feel less alone? Do you tell your hairstylist things you don’t tell others? What other loose-tie relationships are important to you? If you’re a hairstylist, do you have any thoughts or stories to add?

Photo by Guilherme Petri on Unsplash

Charlotte Donlon helps her readers and clients notice how they belong to themselves, others, God, and the world. Charlotte is a writer, a spiritual director, and the founder of Spiritual Direction for Writers™ and Spiritual Direction for Belonging™ Her essays have appeared in The Washington Post, The Curator, The Christian Century, Christianity Today, Catapult, The Millions, Mockingbird, and elsewhere. Her first book is The Great Belonging: How Loneliness Leads Us to Each Other. She’s currently writing her next book, Spiritual Direction for Writers, which will be published by Eerdmans in 2024.