There’s no exact science that explains why people who’ve gone through something traumatic, whether that’s heartbreak, violence, displacement or bullying, decide to completely change their hair. It seems like a trivial, surface-level reaction that is unlikely to make a difference. But it does. Sometimes, a better outlook is just one good haircut away — and the more drastic the change, the better.
Somewhere in New York in 2012, hairstylist Mark Bustos took his scissors to the streets and started giving haircuts for free. His “makeovers,” if you could call them that, became famous because the recipients were homeless people, the overlooked and downtrodden. The ignored. It was such a feel-good story that networks picked it up immediately, showing before-and-after photos of Mark’s subjects — now his good friends — all with giant smiles they probably haven’t busted out in a while. His hashtag and motto, #BeAwesomeToSomebody, has trended worldwide, and what started out as a personal project, has reached Miami, Puerto Rico, Jamaica and now, the Philippines, where it actually all began.
“My girlfriend, Lala, and I visited some family in the Philippines two years ago. We’re both from Pampanga, her family is from Magalang, a small town in Pampanga. Her father passed away and we thought it would be a really great idea to go to the barbershop where he used to get his haircut. We rented a chair in the barbershop and I was able to work side by side with the local barbers for the day. We had less-fortunate children come into the shop. It was just my way of giving back, to be able to cut their hair and make them look good and feel good about themselves, sometimes for the first time in their whole lives,” Mark tells YStyle. “The feeling was just so rewarding that we thought, why not just continue this everywhere we go? We mostly cut hair in New York because we’re both from there, but wherever we’ve traveled to, we’ve done hair. Wherever we go, I’ll bring my scissors with me and try to give back somehow,” he adds.
Both Mark and Lala are hairstylists at high-end salons in New York, the city where they met and had an instant connection, because they both are from Pampanga. “Mark is happy all the time,” Lala jokes when I ask what compels Mark to, as he describes it, send positive vibes to strangers on the street. Mark adds, “It’s hard for me to complain, especially with all the stories and things I’ve heard over the past couple of years. I can’t really complain about anything.”
Mark doesn’t only gives haircuts to the homeless, he talks to them and listens to their stories. In one of his Instagram posts, he wrote: “We sometimes feel more comfortable speaking to our hairstylists than other people we interact with, even professional therapists. Maybe it’s the constant change in the physical position a stylist and client maintains, facing each other directly only for brief moments. Or maybe getting your hair done is a luxury we have grown to be comfortable receiving. It’s that patiently impatient feeling of that sensation of self-confidence that lies just a few snips away.” He becomes his clients’ friends — both paying and non-paying.
“When I approach people, they usually haven’t heard of me. It’s the people walking by who’ve read the story because they have more access to newspapers and computers,” he shares. “Every reaction is different, every reaction is just as good as the last. Just recently I was in Miami, in South Beach, Florida, walking around the streets along the beach. I ran into a handful of homeless people living on the beach. One of them happened to be Native American, and he was a very very passionate man. I asked him a question and it really just got to him. He couldn’t hold back his tears. The question I asked was something along the lines of ‘What’s the most difficult thing you’ve experienced living here on the streets?’ And he just broke down. He shared how much he loves people, and that he always love to help other people out. Then he pulled a piece of grass out of the ground, held up the piece of grass and he said, ‘Beautiful things around us grow all the time, why can’t we grow as people?’ It was such a simple thing, but, wow. Why can’t we all just think the same way?”
I ask him if he’s ever come across people who know exactly what kind of cut they want, and he tells me they all do. “Many of them just give me the ability to create for them. For the most part, people know how they want to look, how they want their hair done. It’s just that they’re not always able to do so,” he says. “Not all of them will want a haircut. Some people like their hair long. Some may be embarassed that their hair is a little dirty, which doesn’t bother me at all. But I respect that. I’d say 90 percent of people let me cut their hair. And even without them having to say anything, you could just see that their posture just changes. You see their facial expressions — the look on their faces changes a little bit and they really don’t have to say much.”
FEEL GOOD THING
Mark started hairstyling when he was 14 years old. “I started with a few friends in New Jersey. A few friends turned into more, and then more, until I started doing the entire high school and surrounding towns and it just grew from there,” says Mark. After college, Mark went to hair school and got a license to do hair.
“I grew up in New Jersey, about six to seven miles from midtown Manhattan. The first time I came to the Philippines was when I was 12. I remember seeing children with no clothes and shoes on, playing in the streets and laughing. It was the first time I’ve seen something like that and it really stuck with me,” he shares. Coming from a family that has long been involved in various charities (his family has been donating to an elementary school in San Nicolas, as well as doing drives during the holidays for kids), it seemed like the most natural thing for him to start giving back.
“It started as a personal thing — and it almost made me feel good. That’s why I kept doing it. And it made the recipients of the haircuts feel great as well. I had a client who was working for CNN, and a client that worked for Refinery29, and a client that got me to do an interview with the Today Show, and Lala had a client who worked for the Huffington Post. I had an email interview with the Huffinton Post, and I was just answering the questions, not thinking anything of it. Then the next day I was shooting a segment with CNN on the street, and in the middle of the segment, Huffington Post posted it, and CNN found out so they were ‘We need to post it right now, too.’ And the Today Show found out, and they were like, ‘We need to post it.’ And Refinery29 found out… It was never expected or anything like that,” he shares.
Soon enough, it became more than just haircuts. “Lala would put together care packages — just the essentials, toothbrushes, toothpastes, hand sanitizers, wet wipes, granola bars, snacks, bottled water… in the wintertime, we give away gloves and scarves. If they don’t want a haircut, we still have a gift for them.” Mark has cut hair in the dead of winter (just two weeks ago), though he says the most extreme conditions under which he’s given anyone a haircut was last week, in a dumpsite in Pampanga.
“Over here in the Philippines, it’s very, very different. People are still really happy. And they’re still able to figure out a way to take care of themselves. Poor people in the Philippines are able to create homes for themselves. In America you can’t do that — they have shelters and missions. There was a community of 41 families living along the dumpsite we visited in San Nicolas, Pampanga. As their jobs, they would go through the trash to pick pieces out and segregate them. I guess they live off of the trash, but a lot of them still had smiles on their faces and they weren’t feeling sorry for themselves or anything like that. People are just always so happy no matter what,” he shares.
It’s been two years since Mark started his project in the small barbershop in his hometown and about a year and a half since they started the movement on the streets of New York. Mark has given about a hundred free haircuts to the less fortunate. His Instagram account has gone from 800 to 228,000 followers. (“I used to have more followers!” Lala jokes.) And now he’s back in Manila for an indefinite period of time, partly for vacation, and partly to continue in their #BeAwesomeToSomebody project. This time around, he’s teamed up with Bench Fix Salon.
“A friend of mine traveled with me as well, his name is Manny. He’s the only other person I allow to cut my hair, aside from my cousin back home. We’re going to be doing a haircutting seminar, hands-on men’s and women’s haircuts with some of the Bench stylists,” he shares. Today, Mark and his team, together with 30 Bench Fix hairstylists, will be cutting hair for the handicapped at Gawad Kalinga.
As a side note, Mark adds, “I will also be doing a charity event at my aunt’s salon in Ayala Alabang. It’s the first time I will be cutting hair of the not less fortunate, for charity. I’ll be charging them 10 times the usual fee and the proceeds will go to victims of drug addiction.”
At 30 years old, Mark looks like a kid. It’s hard to believe that he’s done all he’s done — especially when you see him. Both Mark and Lala have this childlike excitement that’s infectious. It’s no wonder many of their friends have also started doing their own versions of #BeAwesomeToSomebody. He admits, though, that he doesn’t have a “next step” yet. “I don’t have any plans. I didn’t even plan for any of this to happen. So whatever happens, happens. I just want to continue to inspire other people to do great things. It’s not about me and my own movement. It’s about changing the world and just creating positivity all around.”
Looks like the world can look forward to more good hair days — and good vibes — to come.Photos by JUN MENDOZA and @markbustos on Instagram