Some female makeup artists held protests in reaction to the ban on women's beauty salons, calling on the interim government to rescind its order. 
They held a gathering in an enclosed area, saying that they are the breadwinners of their families, and that the closing of women's beauty salons would create severe economic challenges for them.
They gathered at the Union of Women's Beauty Salons. 
“More than 12,000 women's beauty salons are active all over Afghanistan and all of them are women,” said Nadia Sultani, a female makeup artist. 
“Women's beauty salons are the women's area. The head of every beauty salon is a woman. When a woman is working in a women's beauty salon, that is due to hardship and poverty,” said Raha Hassani, a female makeup artist. 
 Earlier, a spokesman for the Ministry of Vice and Virtue, Mohammad Akif Mahajar, said that the Islamic Emirate’s leader, in a new verbal decree, banned women's beauty salons in Kabul and other provinces across the country.
“I am forced to work there to find food for my children. Now as they are closing it, it is very difficult for us,” said Ziwar, a female makeup artist. 
“We either leave the country, or we will go on the street and commit suicide. Or they put us under an atom bomb or execute us because we are women,” said a female makeup artist. 
The spokesman for the Ministry of Vice and Virtue, Mohammad Akif Mahajar, said that female beauty salons have been closed in consideration of Sharia law.  
“Based on Sharia it is not allowed that the hair of one human is put on the head of another human. There in beauty salons they do hair transplants for women,” he said. 
A women's rights activist, Marriam Shorash, criticized the decision of the Islamic Emirate to ban women's beauty salons.
"Everyone has engaged in a career due to their needs. (Women) are deprived of schools and higher education, and then referred to a career, but they took it from them as well,” said Marriam Shorash, a women’s rights activist.
The Kabul Municipality said that 3,000 beauty salons are registered.
“Based on the statistics of the Kabul municipality, we have registered less than 3,000 licences and the Kabul municipality will not extend their licenses from the due date,” said Nematullah Barakzai, a spokesman for the Kabul municipality. 
This comes as the US special envoy for Afghan women and human rights, Rina Amiri, on Twitter reacted to the ban on women's beauty salons, saying that the “Taliban ban on beauty parlors removes another vital space for women’s work at a time when they’re struggling to feed their families, eliminates one of the few refuges for women outside the home.”