Beauty in Gaza: Noor’s tent salon in the rubble

Amani Dweima has come to the salon with her 16-year-old daughter, Aya.

The 39-year-old wants her eyebrows shaped, and Aya wants a full face of makeup; there’s a wedding planned for that evening after iftar.“My niece’s wedding,” Amani says. “We’re celebrating the bride with a small family gathering before the groom takes her to their tent.”

Noor’s Salon
The salon is a small blue tent with a single table inside topped with a damaged mirror, depilation tools, moisturisers, and some makeup.

Outside the tent in al-Shujaeya east of Gaza City, a white handwritten sign reading: “Noor’s Salon” hangs near the curtained entrance.

This is Noor al-Ghamari’s salon, a dream project for the young woman who quit nursing college to pursue her love of hair and makeup.

She set it up about three weeks ago on a destroyed pavement, the only option available when she and her family returned to the north from their displacement to the south.

After greeting Amani and Aya, she starts softening a small piece of sugaring paste, gently kneading it in her hands, and begins working.“I try to offer them a moment of comfort, a small escape. My main goal is for them to leave feeling even just a little lighter, a little happier.”

Amani, who was displaced to Deir el-Balah and has recently returned to the north, as well, didn’t think about going to a beautician at all in the early days of the war.

Eventually, she came across a similar salon in Deir el-Balah and started to go as regularly as she could.

“Looking after myself changes my mood, especially when I see my reflection in the mirror. I always want to look presentable.

“The tragedies around us never end. Visiting a beauty salon is … a small escape from all the hardships around us,” she adds.

Back in the north, she was “thrilled” when she saw Noor’s Salon and immediately spread the good news to her neighbours and relatives.

Beauty amid war
Noor believes the war has been particularly cruel to women in Gaza – stripping them of their homes and security and of their capacity for self-care as they poured their energy into survival.

“I saw many women whose skin was completely burned by the sun from living in tents, constantly cooking over wood fires, washing clothes by hand, and carrying heavy water containers,” she says.

“On top of that, they have no privacy in the overcrowded displacement camps, not to mention the fear, bombings, and all the horrors of war.”“I met many women who couldn’t stand a single stray hair on their face or eyebrows. Some came to me every week, others regularly or occasionally,” Noor says.

She recalls a client she got once, a woman in her early 30s who had been through a huge trauma when her parents and all her siblings were killed in an Israeli air raid.

Coping with her loss meant the woman lost all desire to do anything.

“I felt so deeply for her,” Noor says.

“I gave her a full treatment – threading, eyebrow shaping, a haircut, even a free face massage and masque.

“When she looked in the mirror, her eyes filled with happy tears.”

Holding on to dreams
Israel’s war on Gaza began right as Noor was dreaming, laying out the plans for her own – bricks-and-mortar – salon.

Like everyone in Gaza, her life and plans were turned upside down as she, her parents and her eight siblings were forced to flee south after Israeli evacuation orders.

For the first two months, her only thoughts were of survival and helping her family, she says.

“But after the initial months, when we settled in a displacement camp in the south, I heard women say things like: ‘If only there were a hairdresser or a salon nearby so we could take care of ourselves a little.’

“I would respond: ‘I’m a beautician!’” Noor laughs.