Salon acts to ditch celebrity magazines

Harmony Hair and Beauty of Rosegarth Street has made a decision to bin the celebrity mags, and offer instead a mix of books and different sorts of publications, such as food and home magazines.

And customers have welcomed the decision, with the salon now looking at introducing a book swapping area as part of a revamp.

Former Love Island television presenter Caroline is believed to have taken her own life in the wake of publicity following her arrest for assault.

Her death in February provoked a huge backlash against sections of the media, with a petition calling on the government to launch an inquiry into coverage of public figures, attracting more than 200,000 signatures.

Harmony owner Emily Gurton said the salon decided to take the stand partly because of what happened to Caroline, but also because of more underlying concerns about what they portray.

“We feel the media portrays an unrealistic and unachievable stereotype for people to look up to, and feel as though that is essentially how they should look and behave,” she said.

“This is obviously not true as many of these people live fake lives where even they don’t look as they do!

“We should be focusing on positivity and building people up, working towards their goals not making them feel bad for making a mistake or for not having the latest fad.”

Emily said she hoped if more businesses took similar action, it might make magazines and tabloid newspapers look at what they report on.

“I think the magazines and tabloids were a major factor to how Caroline saw herself despite being in an already poor mental state,” she said.

Emily and manager Donna Baker came up with the ban idea after seeing a salon down south do something similar, and they were immediately backed by the rest of the team.