Coronavirus shutdown leads to DIY haircuts in Sonoma County

Tomas Tamayo started out easy, grabbing an electric clipper and just taking a bit off around the ears. Then he got carried away.

Tamayo, like hundreds of thousands of others in Sonoma County, was looking increasingly shaggy as the weeks of shelter in place turned into months. With hair salons and barbershops barred from operating under county’s health order to curb cases of coronavirus, some coifs were getting out of hand, Tamayo’s included.

So he went above the ears. When his wife, Christina, didn’t notice, he went higher. Days passed and she still didn’t notice. So Tamayo, who owns his own insurance company and wasn’t allowed to show up in person at the office, went gonzo.

“I decided to mess with my wife,” he said. “I put the clipper behind my ear and made a line straight up.”

The result was something like a mullet with a hard, 90-degree angle at the crown. It was a masterpiece, Tamayo said.

“I wanted to get a rise out of my wife,” he said.

Mission accomplished.

“It just kept getting worse,” Christina Tamayo said. “I was like, ‘Let me try to fix it.’ And he’s like, ‘No I’m not going anywhere,’ and I’m like, ‘You go to Costco.’?”

Tomas Tamayo said on the rare occasion he would go out, he’d get a knowing nod from those in the home haircut club - and even from those who perhaps had not taken a shaver to their own head but appreciated his effort anyway.

For work video calls, he kept his face strictly forward so his style stayed a little bit undercover.

“Business in the front, party in the back,” he said.

Hair salons and barbershops may be able to reopen in early June, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Monday. But as the shutdown of professional grooming services enters its third month this week, a growing number of Sonoma County residents are, like Tamayo, taking up the shears themselves.

Veteran stylist Francesca Santoni understands the impulse of some of her clients. She hasn’t been able to cut hair at Elle Lui salon in Santa Rosa for more than two months. And sometimes, for some people, it is less about the hair and more about simply taking action, she said.

“You are bored, you are anxious. You want to take control over something and your hair is something you can control,” she said.

For some, it’s serious business.

Robin Eurgubian is a counselor and interim director of the transfer center at Santa Rosa Junior College. She’s been making weekly videos and informational video updates for staff and SRJC’s 22,000 students, all of whom are trying to navigate what seems like an ever-changing set of rules for course study and roadmaps for transferring in the middle of a global pandemic.

Eurgubian spends a lot of time in front of the camera.

“I have to maintain professionalism,” she said.

But she also has blunt bangs and they were starting to grow ever longer, into her eyes. So she shot a message to Santoni, who has cut her hair for years, and offered to pay her for a personal video tutorial on how to cut her own hair.

With a pair of her scissors from her husband’s clipper set and Santoni’s video on her phone, Eurgubian got to work.

“I’d stop, watch it, went for it, stopped, watched it,” she said. “I definitely have newfound respect for my hair stylist. She is an expert, this is her profession. It’s jarring cutting your bangs and it’s very final. I was very nervous about the creeping up and up, then you don’t have bangs at all.”

When she was finished, she texted Santoni who promptly instructed her to even out the right side. Then she was all set.

Vincente Mendez of Santa Rosa was under similar pressure. He felt his coif was getting a little shaggy, so on the eve of a job interview at Chase Bank to be a teller, he asked his dad, Vincente Sr., to pull out the old equipment.

“He had that from years ago,” Mendez said of the cutting supplies. “He used to cut our hair when we were little kids.”

His dad grumbled a bit, but put up a solid performance, Mendez said.

“I was surprised he had the ability,” he said. “And hey, I look presentable and felt confident.”

So confident, in fact, that Mendez got the job.

It was a team effort in the West household in Santa Rosa, too.

Dad Jay West said he called in reinforcements when he found himself reaching for his hat a bit too often.

“I always know, when I look in the mirror if my first instinct is to put a hat on, I know it’s time,” he said.

He couldn’t call his barber, so he called his daughter.

“I had no clue what I was doing. He kind of gave me no direction,” said Avery West, a junior at Santa Rosa High. “I just kind of did what I thought would work. I just kind of went for it … but I kept laughing. So my dad was like ‘What is happening back there?’?”

“I ended up getting really nervous so I ended up getting my brother to take over,” she said.

West remains diplomatic about the sibling team effort on his locks.

“She did a fine job. It was OK. Her older brother stepped in and touched it up a little bit,” he said, chuckling.

As for how this haircut stacks up against others he’s gotten?

“It’s not the best and it’s very close to the worst, but not the worst.”

Laura Bryan admits it - she’s impatient. Her hair was bugging her and she wanted action. But she didn’t own any scissors that would remotely qualify as salon-quality. So the hardest part wasn’t dealing with her hair, it was waiting for the real shears she ordered online to arrive on the doorstep of her Santa Rosa home.

They arrived last week.

When she readied herself in front of the bathroom mirror, her husband tried to stop her.

“He was like, ‘Uh, you should watch a YouTube video,’?” she said.

Nope. Plus, what does he know?

“My husband is easy because he’s bald. He’s got it made,” she said.

So she took her brand new shears into the bathroom and went for it.

“I pull my hair forward, I’m like ‘How am I going to do this?’?” she said.

She decided she’d try to mimic the stylists who do her hair multiple times a year.

“The next thing you know, I turned it, cut, cut and then I look into the sink and I’m like, ‘Ahhhhh,’?” she said. “I told my husband, ‘Go. Get the scissors, this is bad. I’m going to turn into one of those girls who cuts their dolls’ hair. I’m not going to be this girl.’?”

So she stopped. Bryan, who works in construction and has been out in the world working during the shelter-in-place order, said she will try to lay off until her salon reopens.

“I haven’t had to do this at-home crap since I was a teenager,” she said.

It’s been decades since Nancy Cummings of Santa Rosa cut her own hair.

“I used to do it when I was a starving student,” she said. “But I was much more agile and supple and I had like a three-way mirror. I could see the back of my hair. Now it’s a little more difficult.”

She was well into her self-cut when something occurred to her.

“I realized I couldn’t see,” she said.

Cummings called in her wife, Daniele Todaro, for help. But apparently not soon enough.

“I didn’t get to her soon enough for her to see my logic,” Cummings said.

Todaro tried to follow what Cummings had started, but to no avail.

“She has a little bald spot, right above her ear,” Todaro said. There was giggling on the other end of the line.

“That’s how she sublimates anxiety, by laughing,” Todaro said.

Todaro makes no bones about the fact that she made out well better than her wife in the deal.

The style?

“You know, old lady short,” she said.

“Nancy used to cut her own hair so I wasn’t worried when she said she would cut mine,” she said. “I got a beautiful haircut.”

But Todaro said it’s all about perspective these days. The wings Cummings’ hair gets when it’s too long or the smallish bald spot she now sports courtesy of a home hair cut? Not too big a deal in the grand scheme of things.

“If you have lived together for 30 years,” Todaro said, “you don’t actually look at each other, so I wasn’t worried.”

You can reach staff writer Kerry Benefield at 707-526-8671 or kerry.benefield@pressdemocrat.com, on Twitter @benefield and on Instagram at kerry.benefield.