Excerpt:
In a fit of desperation last summer, Rownak Chowdhury washed her hair, stood in the middle of her kitchen floor and handed her mother a pair of scissors.
"Just chop it," she told her.
It was hardly the ideal salon experience but, for Chowdhury, it was the quickest and easiest way to deal with hair that had grown long, heavy and scraggly under her head scarf.
"This is what I do when it gets really bad," says Chowdhury, recalling the incident. "It was just the chop across but it did the job – kind of."
Like many who wear the hijab, Chowdhury couldn't find a high-end salon that could give her the privacy she requires as a conservative Muslim and the stylish haircut she wants as a young, modern woman.