America is about to go botox wild

Slowly, though, the things that have felt so trivial over the past year are beginning to seem more possible—and a bit less trivial. As millions of Americans are vaccinated each day, the beauty industry is poised for an unprecedented summer boom. People are already filling up the appointment books at salons and spas, preparing for a world in which being seen is once again a regular part of the human experience. Americans are ready to look hot again. They are ready to go out. And along with sparkly nails and plump lips, beauty services seem to be offering exactly what so many people have been craving after a year of self-abnegation: a first taste of post-pandemic comfort and a modicum of control over how they enter the future. Read: I want to look damn good when the world sees me again People tend to express and affirm their identity through their appearance; feeling as though you don’t look like you anymore can be stressful and destabilizing, even if it’s not literally life-and-death. When most businesses shut down last spring, demand for beauty services didn’t disappear, says Danielle Cohen-Shohet, the CEO and co-founder of GlossGenius, a beauty-industry bookings-and-payments platform. “People who were really desperate were contacting stylists who, for the very first time, were starting to do house calls,” Cohen-Shohet told me. Sign-ups for her company’s software increased dramatically in the first several months of the pandemic, as laid-off providers went solo or businesses updated their antiquated systems in anticipation of contact-tracing protocols. Bookings surged once salons and spas began to reopen in many parts of the country last summer, Cohen-Shohet said. Then the vaccines arrived, and everything exploded.