No he vuelto a la peluquería desde febrero.

In Spain, he vuelto is the present perfect and is very natural when talking about something connected to the present moment.

Here, No he vuelto a la peluquería desde febrero means:

• from February until now
• I haven’t gone back

That time period is still open, because now is included.

If you said No volví a la peluquería desde febrero, it would sound much less natural in standard Spain Spanish. In Spain, with desde + a point in time + up to now, the present perfect is usually preferred.

Volver usually means to return or to go back.

So he vuelto a la peluquería literally means I have gone back to the hairdresser’s / salon.

In this sentence, the idea is not just I didn’t go, but more specifically I haven’t gone back again since February.

That gives it a slight nuance of:

• I had gone before
• and since February, I haven’t returned

That a is the normal preposition used with movement toward a place.

• volver a casa = to go back home
• volver al trabajo = to go back to work
• volver a la peluquería = to go back to the hairdresser’s / salon

So here, a does not belong to volver a + infinitive. It is simply the a meaning to before a destination:

• volver a
  • place = to go back to a place

Compare:

• He vuelto a Madrid = I’ve gone back to Madrid
• He vuelto a estudiar = I’ve started studying again

Those are two different structures.

In Spanish, the usual way to make a verb negative is to put no directly before the conjugated verb.

So:

• He vuelto = I’ve gone back
• No he vuelto = I haven’t gone back

That is the normal word order in Spanish.

Notice that no goes before the whole verbal phrase, not after it. So you would not say:

• He no vuelto ❌

He vuelto is the first person singular present perfect of volver.

It is made up of:

• he = first person singular of haber
• vuelto = past participle of volver

So:

• he vuelto = I have returned / I have gone back

A very common point of confusion for English speakers is that he here does not mean the English pronoun he. It is a form of the auxiliary verb haber.

Both can appear in similar contexts, but they are not the same thing.

• la peluquería = the hair salon / barbershop / hairdresser’s place
• el peluquero / la peluquera = the hairdresser (the person)

So this sentence literally refers to the place:

• No he vuelto a la peluquería = I haven’t gone back to the salon / hairdresser’s

If you said No he vuelto al peluquero, that would sound like I haven’t gone back to the hairdresser himself. It is possible in some contexts, but a la peluquería is the most neutral and natural if you mean the establishment.

In Spanish, months are usually used without an article after desde.

So:

• desde febrero = since February
• desde mayo = since May

That is completely normal.

You could add extra detail if needed:

• desde febrero pasado = since last February
• desde el mes de febrero = since the month of February

But the basic sentence desde febrero is perfectly natural and common.

Desde febrero means since February and marks the starting point of a period that continues up to the present.

That is why the sentence naturally matches the present perfect:

• No he vuelto a la peluquería desde febrero
  = I haven’t been back to the hairdresser since February

It implies:

• February was the last time, or at least the point after which I stopped going back
• and that situation is still true now

Yes, and it is very natural. But there is a small difference in nuance.

• No he ido a la peluquería desde febrero = I haven’t gone to the hairdresser since February
• No he vuelto a la peluquería desde febrero = I haven’t gone back to the hairdresser since February

With ir, the focus is simply on not going.

With volver, the focus is on not returning. It suggests more clearly that this is a place you had been to before and haven’t gone back to.

In many everyday contexts, both would work, but volver highlights the idea of returning.

Yes, it sounds very natural in Spain Spanish, especially because of the use of the present perfect.

In Spain, people often use the present perfect for recent past actions or for situations that still connect to the present:

• Este mes no he ido = I haven’t gone this month
• No he vuelto desde febrero = I haven’t gone back since February

In many parts of Latin America, speakers might more often use the preterite in contexts where Spain Spanish prefers the present perfect. But for Spanish from Spain, this sentence is very standard.

Month names in Spanish often appear without an article, especially after prepositions like desde, en, hasta, and so on.

So these are normal:

• desde febrero
• en marzo
• hasta abril

You can sometimes hear an article in other structures, such as:

• el febrero pasado
• en el febrero de 2020 (more formal or specific)

But in this sentence, desde febrero is the usual form.

Peluquería is pronounced roughly:

pe-lu-que-RI-a

The stress falls on rí.

The written accent in peluquería shows that the stress is on that syllable:

• pe-lu-que-RÍ-a

Without the accent mark, Spanish pronunciation rules would suggest a different stress pattern, so the accent is necessary.

Also note that ía is pronounced in two syllables here:

• rí-a not as one merged sound.

Not exactly as a direct translation.

The Spanish sentence literally says:

• I haven’t gone back to the hairdresser / salon since February

That often implies that you probably haven’t had a haircut since then, but it is not identical.

If you want to say specifically I haven’t had a haircut since February, Spanish would more naturally be something like:

• No me corto el pelo desde febrero
• No me he cortado el pelo desde febrero

So the given sentence is about returning to the place, not directly about the haircut itself.