“Even when there’s a war on, people still want to look their best,” says Irina, co-owner of a beauty parlor in the Saltivka district of Kharkiv. She and her husband Vlad opened it a year into the war, when Saltivka was looking somewhat in need of a facelift itself. Its sprawling Soviet housing blocs had been bombed non-stop, leaving many boarded up, and only a fraction of the vast housing project’s 800,000 residents still remained.

At such a time, one might expect locals to be spending money on practical things like new windows or furnishings. But with any home improvements likely to be undone again overnight by Russian ordnance, many prefer to lash out on personal improvements instead.

Lip fillers are very popular, as is Botox for long-furrowed foreheads and treatments for stress-related hair-loss. If there’s an unexpected power cut mid-operation — which happens in a city that typically spends three to five hours a day without electricity — then Irina simply........

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