Glastonbury 2023: Hair salons and wonder bars – how pageant has gone from grime to glam

There as soon as was a time, not so way back, that the one sort of tub you’d get at Glastonbury can be a mud tub.

Over 5 or 6 days, the perfect the typical hygienic camper may hope for was a faucet rinse or wet-wipe wash and a hide-all bucket hat – however actually, anybody getting the true Worthy Farm pageant expertise needed to depart grand notions of trying glamorous again at dwelling.

Photographs of notably moist and dirty years – akin to 2005, when some tents had been submerged – had been half and parcel of the Glastonbury expertise, as had been wise waterproofs, sturdy boots, and long-drop rest room horror tales.

Now, nonetheless, whereas the bathrooms may nonetheless be an ordeal, the pageant appears to be like very totally different. Thank Kate Moss and her micro shorts. And Sienna Miller and her boho belts, Alexa Chung and her PVC skinnies. It began with the celebs, and filtered out to the 200,000-ish non-famouses who now attend annually.

Glastonbury has moved with the occasions, and it isn’t simply concerning the outfits. In 2023, festival-goers is likely to be sleeping in tents, however are capable of seem like they simply stepped out of a salon, due to hairdressing and wonder pop-ups on web site.

At the Blowfest stall, not removed from the Pyramid stage, you’ll be able to deal with your self to something from a easy hair wash for £15 to a inventive blow-dry and styling for £60. Bookings opened in March – and similar to the sale for tickets for the pageant itself, demand was so excessive that the web site crashed.

On web site, the queue had began to construct by 8.30am on Friday.

Natalie Walton, 29, from Kent, joined the road snaking exterior to get her hair washed.

“There’s no better feeling as a girl,” she instructed Sky News. “I just hate the feeling of sweat in my hair… there should be more tents [like this], I think, personally. There’s so many girls here that need their hair done.”

At dwelling, Natalie straightens her hair daily – and sleeping in a tent means too many kinks.

“I’ve been once before and I got it last year as well,” she stated. “I appreciate it.”

Because of social media, festival-goers need to look their greatest. Gone are the cellular phone-less days, when what went on at Glastonbury stayed at Glastonbury.

But it is partly all the way down to the altering climate, too. It’s been a couple of years since Glastonbury has seen the torrential downpours and mud-wading of notably rain years akin to 1997 and 2005. Sunshine equals summer time garments and, for many, higher hair.

For Amy Roberts, 27, from Liverpool, that is her fifth time on the pageant. At dwelling, she solely washes her hair as soon as every week – however Glastonbury requires extra effort.

“I woke up this morning and there were spiders in it and everything,” she stated. “I’m not really a glamour person, but… I want to look nice. I don’t want to look a mess.

“The first time I got here right here I used to be solely 19, I did not wash my hair… it was on and off raining, [my hair] was terrible.”

Rachel Bacon, who runs the stall, is right here for the second 12 months after big demand in 2022. The salon affords primarily washes and blow-drying, however can embody trims as nicely and a barber’s service.

“Friday and Saturday will always be fairly busy,” she stated. “I think last Saturday [in 2022], people waited about up to three hours just to get a hair wash.

“I believe with the best way that life is altering, with social media and digital camera telephones and the know-how that we have now, all people desires to look good on a regular basis to have the ability to take pictures and submit them on-line. So if that features being at a pageant and having fabulous hair you simply simply go together with it.”

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Blowfest even had shoppers on the primary official day of the pageant on Wednesday – when music followers had solely simply left their properties and clear bogs – after rain earlier within the day.

“People just wanted to come in and dry their hair off or restraighten it,” Rachel stated, “even on Wednesday”.

While some might say hair washing and blow-dries are a world away from the Glastonbury of outdated, the demand is there – and what’s unsuitable with trying your greatest?

“There’s a bit of a mixed feeling towards, you know, ‘oh, it’s not a hippie festival anymore if people are going to get hair washed’,” Rachel stated. “But everybody’s individual and everybody wants their own thing.”