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 most effective the typical hygienic camper would possibly 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 go away grand notions of trying glamorous again at dwelling.

Photographs of notably moist and dirty years – reminiscent of 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, nevertheless, whereas the bathrooms would possibly nonetheless be an ordeal, the pageant seems to be very completely 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 instances, and it isn’t simply in regards to the outfits. In 2023, festival-goers is perhaps 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 may deal with your self to something from a easy hair wash for £15 to a artistic blow-dry and styling for £60. Bookings opened in March – and identical 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 mentioned. “I appreciate it.”

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

But it is partly right 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 reminiscent of 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 mentioned. “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 enormous demand in 2022. The salon presents primarily washes and blow-drying, however can embrace trims as properly and a barber’s service.

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

“I feel with the way in which that life is altering, with social media and digital camera telephones and the expertise that we have now, everyone needs to look good on a regular basis to have the ability to take pictures and publish 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 mentioned, “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 mistaken 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 mentioned. “But everybody’s individual and everybody wants their own thing.”