A woman dressed in a long black robe and a headscarf that leaves only her eyes visible walks past the covered windows of a popular beauty salon in Kabul, Afghanistan. Men are not allowed behind the shop’s heavy velvet curtains. Inside, another world unfolds: A young girl is getting her long black hair curled by a hairstylist, while the owner of the salon—a beautiful, tall woman with microbladed eyebrows—runs around in a blouse and jeans.
Beauty salons became popular in conservative Afghanistan following the fall of the previous Taliban regime in 2001. After five years of largely being restricted to their homes, women flocked to these shops to get massages and manicures and their hair and makeup done. There were around 12,000 beauty salons in the country, approximately 3,000 of them in the capital alone. Yalda (we’re identifying all women in the story by their first name only to protect their safety) has been running this salon in northeastern Kabul since 2005, gradually expanding the space as her business improved.
