Syra Yousuf has responded and hit back at those who posted negative comments about her skin after her sister Palwasha Yousuf, a stylist, posted an unfiltered picture of the actor on social media. While many, especially women, lauded Syra for embracing her skin and putting down unrealistic beauty standards, others mocked her skin for being textured and not smooth.
Responding to the backlash on social media over her skin, Syra posted a natural selfie of herself, writing: “I really like my skin.” She also used the hashtag “No Filter” to further get her point across.
In a similar incident, Dubai-based beauty influencer Huda Kattan also opened up and discussed how edits make a person appear perfect, setting unrealistic beauty standards for the rest.
Meanwhile, earlier in 2019, Hania Aamir in a social media post had opened up about her struggle with acne and talked about unrealistic beauty standards.
One of Pakistan’s leading salons, which has branches in major cities of Pakistan, Nabila’s Salon, recently announced that they would open up the salon for business after taking all the necessary precautions.
Nabila, in a video, said that the service industry is suffering the most due to the pandemic but that “we all have a choice”.
“We all have a choice. We can either live in the circle of concern, freak out, watch the news or wait for things to happen, or we can live in the circle of influence and take full charge,” said Nabila.
She then went onto say that because she is an optimist, she would choose the latter option and make decisions regarding her personal and professional life by ‘Raising the Bar’.
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The salon, in a video, stated that it will be “a safe space with a superior level of hygiene combined with best practices and medical level sanitisation to ensure the health and well being of everyone who walks through our doors.”
The salon’s announcement to open was met with immense backlash and Nabila took to personally respond to them and defend her decision. While comments have now been disabled on the post, screenshots are being widely circulated on social media.
Later while speaking tovarious media outlets, Nabila said that she will not be bullied. She said that she has not opened the salon as yet but will wait for the government to give the green signal. She said the videos the salon had posted were to tell their clients of the precautions they will be taking once they open and to also let the government know that they are fully equipped to provide services. Nabila shared that she consulted doctors and experts before making her decisions.
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The entrepreneur further added that as the President of Pakistan’s Hair and Beauty Association, it is her duty to ensure that her industry, which employs thousands of workers, is also looked after. She said that she spoke to several salon owners who were also feeling the brunt of the pandemic as they have workers and staff to pay and they decided that they will prepare themselves and then approach the government to allow them to provide services with the necessary SOPs and precautions in place.
On the question of wasting PPEs, Nabila said that the country is now producing a surplus of protective equipment and that a friend of her’s who has a garment factory lent her kits for the promotional videos. She said that if needed, she will place an order with him for the salon.
Nabila stood her ground and said that she is being responsible and proactive. She said that she also has employees to pay and that for the past two months, she has been paying them from her own pocket.
Nabila added: “We are responsible for the bread and butter of hundreds of families. How can we not think of ways to fall in line with this new norm? Should we not be considering the possibilities on how the world would work post-corona?”
Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz (PML-N) MPA Sadia Taimoor has submitted a resolution in the Punjab Assembly seeking opening of beauty parlours and hairdressers’ shops in the province.
According to reports, the resolution read: “This sector gives huge amount in terms of taxes to the government, they should be allowed to do business after adopting precautionary measures amid coronavirus outbreak.”
It further said that millions of people are employed in the beauty industry and closure of such businesses is denting the economy and creating hurdles for people.
The Government of Punjab has extended the lockdown till April 14 in a move to control over spread of novel coronavirus.
Meanwhile, the closure of beauty parlours has not only affected lives in Pakistan, but AFP reported that the demand for some brands of hair colour shot up six times in Britain after the first week of the lockdown there.
However, stylists and colourists have advised people not to experiment too much, especially when it comes to the hair and eyebrows.
“Don’t touch your eyebrows above all,” pleaded Olivier Echaudemaison, creative director of the French cosmetics brand Guerlain.
“Let them grow — leave a virgin forest,” said the man who once looked after makeup for screen legends Audrey Hepburn and Sophia Loren.
Feel free to experiment with makeup, Echaudemaison told AFP, because “if it doesn’t work you just take a tissue and you start again”.
“But anything with hair is a lot more risky,” he warned.
Beauty experts are also advising people not to fall for gimmicks and other hacks they read on the social media, such a beetroot to dye hair.
Social media is full of horror stories of people posting their failed attempts at cutting and colouring their own hair.
French stylist Thomas Girard has been giving up to six free online courses a day to deal with this aesthetic emergency. His advice is to stop immediately if you make a mistake. “The biggest error is thinking that you can fix your mistake by keeping cutting,” he said.
As for roots, he advises just letting them go grey.
“It’s no longer a marker of age, or stigmatising” — in fact, it could be seen as body positive, he argued.
The Senate House Committee has ordered the Capital Development Authority (CDA) to open a beauty salon at Parliament Lodges for women lawmakers “as soon as possible”, Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) reported.
The committee, headed by Senate Deputy Chairman Saleem Mandviwalla, gave the directions after Senator Kulsoom Parveen said that despite clear directions from the convener of the committee to consult her and Samina Saeed for the allocation of a place for the salon in Parliament Lodges, the CDA officials had not bothered to contact either of them.
The chairman directed CDA to solve the issue on priority with consultations of the two senators.
Regarding complaints of different senators about their accommodation in Parliament Lodges, the Senate deputy chairman directed CDA officials to contact senators and solve their issues with immediate effect.
He also reminded CDA that directions to make a financial plan about repair and maintenance work of the lodges were given but were not implemented.
Regarding budget, the committee was informed that Rs319 million were allocated for repair and maintenance work of the lodges whereas the agency had spent Rs203 million so far.
Senator Samina Saeed, while referring a media report, pointed out that water supply in the Parliament House and Parliament Lodges was substandard.
She pleaded the Senate deputy chairman to direct CDA to ensure purified water supply and ensure the delivery of electricity bills to parliamentarians at least seven days ahead of the due date.
