It would be safe to say that today has a “beautiful” thing to celebrate. This is National Beautician’s Day. It’s a celebration of stylists, cosmetologists, and beauticians who do their best to make us look good and to help take care of us. Some of them really have their work cut out for them, don’t they?!?
Martha Matilda Harper is usually credited as being the founder of the beautician’s industry. Born on September 10, 1857, in Ontario, Canada, she was “farmed out” as a domestic servant in Rochester, New York. Menial tasks produced menial wages. In time, she knew this wasn’t what she wanted to do with her life.
Sporting floor-length hair, Harper developed her own hair care tonic because she felt the commercial shampoos and hair-care products of the time were filled with caustic, hair damaging chemicals. In 1888, she opened the Harper Method Shop, thus beginning the professional salon era complete with the reclining shampoo chair which she invented as well.
By 1891, Harper’s one salon had turned into a franchise, eventually having about 500 stores. All franchise owners were trained in the “Harper Method” so that the beauty care would be consistent. Harper’s fame had grown so much that she took care of several well-known clients, including Woodrow Wilson, Susan B. Anthony, Calvin and Grace Coolidge, Jacqueline Kennedy, Helen Hayes, and others.1
Through the years, male “barber shops” have slowly become scarce or taken on bit of a “man’s world” reputation, complete with magazines featuring scantily clad women. It is estimated that 35% of men and 55% of kids have their hair cut in the same salons where women are getting their perms, pedicures, or polish.2 Another 45% choose the DIY method.3 Regardless of who cuts your hair, know that the U.S. hair salon industry is no joke! In 2023, it was a $62.5 billion industry!4
As a kid, there were at least four barbershops in our area that I remember. Today, they are all a distant memory. Dad would take me for the 7 a.m. opening on Saturdays, sitting in a parking spot by 6:30 a.m. in case the shop opened early (which it usually did). I would climb up in that old fashioned barber chair, usually sitting on a booster seat as a little kid. 
The big apron was put around me and the barber started chopping away. To blow off the excess hair, he reached up and grabbed an air compressor hose and nozzle just like you would have in your garage. If he was talking to dad and not paying close attention, I can remember feeling the blast directly in the ear or curling my lips. It seems like there was always a sucker or something that was rewarded after the cut.
While I love having my hair cut and I love that fresh cut style, I absolutely loathe the process. It takes a whole 15 minutes, but my insides are squirming, wishing I could be anywhere else and wanting this to be done. I delay getting my hair cut until I can’t go any longer. I make the appointment on the same day. The person who cuts my hair does absolutely nothing wrong and there is no fault directed at her. It’s me! Forget waterboarding. Those 15 minutes of torture could make me give up government secrets if I had any to share.
Yes, this is a bit of exaggeration, but I am not exaggerating when I say that I cannot stand the process of getting my hair cut!!! Those who will spend hours doing color, highlights, or perms must be the most patient people in the world! Nerves of steel!!
Well, lest you think I’ve gone off on a tangent and chased a rabbit down a hole, let me bring this around to an application. And I ask you to read carefully. 1 Peter 3:3-5 says, “Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; (4) But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. (5) For after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands.”
Some will use a passage like this to denounce going to a salon to practice a bit of self-care. That is not what the passage is teaching. Others will say that the passage is against women wearing makeup or doing something with their hair. Again, this is not what the passage teaches.
First, the passage is teaching against an inordinate preoccupation with our outward appearance. Some – women AND men – will focus their attention on making an ostentatious display of themselves. They become so absorbed with their appearance that nothing else really matters. At the end of the day, all the façade is removed, and the real person is still there.
That brings us to the second point and what the passage is teaching. We need to have a preoccupation with the “hidden man of the heart.” In other words, it’s about internals, not externals.
Hours could be spent every day, primping, plucking, painting, polishing, and preparing a face but only a few minutes, if that, are spent on the person deep inside. Here’s the sad part of it all. We know that looks fade over the years. Wrinkles, bulges, puffiness, and 
crepe skin overtake the best of us. LOOKS don’t get better. But the 80-year old who spent hours every day working on the hidden man of the heart can be the epitome of spiritual beauty.
Yes, take care of the outside. Nobody wants to see us shaggy, unkempt, and looking like we escaped prison or have lived in the back woods for a decade with no contact with the outside world. But focus more on that inward person. Focus on having a heart that has grown “sweeter as the years go by.” Focus on that walk with the Lord that creates an inner beauty that is radiant.
“That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man.” (Ephesians 3:16)
1https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/theymadeamerica//whomade/harper_hi.html
2https://gitnux.org/hair-salon-industry-statistics/
3https://www.denver7.com/news/national/nearly-half-of-men-are-cutting-their-hair-at-home
4https://gitnux.org/hair-salon-industry-statistics/
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