L'oréal celebrate valentine's day with brand new campaign

L’Oréal’s #HairTheLove 2020 campaign celebrates all hairdressers. The concept behind this powerful video is a Love Letter written by a client to a hairdresser, highlighting how they play an integral role in every client’s life-defining moments, from weddings and health challenges to career changes. The video and campaign seeks to inspire the next generation of hairdressing talent by showing people that hairdressing is an incredibly rewarding profession that offers lots of opportunity to help drive the future success and development of the industry. The new Hair the Love video, which was released today exclusively with HJ and is just a minute long, champions the important role that hairdressers play in each of their client's lives. It documents all the ways that hairdressers help their clients in spoken word poetry. More than just touching up their roots or giving them a blow-dry it talks about hairdressers restoring their client's mojos and being there when life gets tough. [ytp_video source="Yr5MYoC6YME"] The L’Oréal Group started the Hair The Love campaign two years ago to celebrate and thank hairdressers for the remarkable work they do for their clients every day. HJ speaks to L’Oréal Professional Products Division UK & Ireland’s managing director Béatrice Dautzenberg about the campaign – just in time for Valentine’s Day.

What is the Hair the Love Campaign?

The Hair The Love campaign is a moment to celebrate, recognise and share love and thanks for the amazing work that hairdressers do every day. Hairdressers touch and transform peoples’ lives. The Hair The Love video is about showing how hairdressers play an integral role in key life moments. From giving you confidence after taking time off work for maternity or paternity, or for that important interview, being by your side for celebratory occasions like your wedding day, to being a pillar of support during difficult moments. Beyond the difference that hairdressers are making in peoples’ lives every day, it is important that we, as an industry, take time to appreciate the impact that hairdressing has on other areas. For example, economically, with hairdressing services being the single largest contributor to the beauty economy and accounting for the largest proportion of jobs at 33 per cent (British Beauty Council report June 2019). From a social and community perspective, salons play an important role by offering employment and career opportunities, as well as more broadly on topics such as sustainability where salons can help to inspire behaviour and lifestyle choices amongst their clients. Salons really are a pillar within their community.

What was the inspiration behind the Hair the Love Campaign?

L’Oréal as a group was born in partnership with hairdressers. Exactly 110 years ago L’Oréal Professionnel, the founding brand of the Group, was created in collaboration with hairdressers. Now, 110 years on, together with all of our hairdressing partners, we continue to pioneer the development of the industry. We started Hair The Love in 2018 and it was inspired by this pioneering spirit and love for the industry. We felt Valentine’s Day was the right moment to share our declaration of love for all hairdressers. The actual concept behind the content as it is on Valentine’s Day, is a Love Letter from a client to a hairdresser and one that is representative of all hairdressers and how they play an important role in every client’s life, and are there for key life moments. We asked people for real stories as we wanted it to be relatable and authentic. What inspired us to create Hair The Love was a desire to shout about our incredibly unique industry. Collectively we need to show people what an incredible profession hairdressing is to continue to attract the next generation. Sally Brooks is a great example of how we need to animate our industry. We have been screening Sally’s documentary ‘The Journey To My Destination’ for hair colleges around the country, and now with Hair The Love, we hope to continue this message and reach parents, teachers, students, everyone, and inspire them to understand more about what our industry has to offer.

Why is it important to champion hairdressing in this way?

We know there has been a decline in the number of apprentices in recent years. Last year we saw a decline of 13 per cent according to the National Hair & Beauty Federation, so we need to drive momentum for the future prosperity of the hairdressing industry. We also know there are still misconceptions around hairdressing as being a ‘second choice’ career or one that isn’t offered as an option in schools as it is seen as ‘non-academic’. We want this to change. Not only is hairdressing a hugely skilled profession in terms of the commitment, the dexterity, chemistry, creativity, artistry and more. We often overlook the soft skills and intense people skills required to support clients through their life journey. Hairdressers form life-long bonds and friendships with clients. They have the ability to completely transform a person’s confidence and how they feel emotionally, and this is so powerful and special. Ultimately, we wanted to create something that captured the role that hairdressers play in key life moments in a contemporary and shareable way.

Why have you chosen to partner with HJ for the campaign?

It is important for us to spread the word amongst the hairdressing community and Hairdressers Journal International has always been a supportive partner and an incredible champion for hairdressing. Sharing in our Hair The Love message, HJ has a powerful voice that can help us to amplify and reach as many hairdressers as possible.

Can you tell us what the words within the letter mean to you?For me personally, as my career has always been connected with hairdressers the words of the letter truly touch me and resonate with me. When we think about the people that we journey through our lives with, our hairdresser is someone who is beside us for big life moments, we trust them with our personal identity, and it is a relationship like no other.

How can clients and hairdressers spread the #HairtheLove message?

We wanted to create a piece of content that is inclusive for everyone, something that both hairdressers and clients can connect with and relate to - and we hope this is what makes it shareable. The more people who see it, the more impact it can have, so we want people to use it. We want hairdressers to feel proud and loved and to know that they are making a difference every day and for clients to appreciate the dedication and passion that goes into being a hairdresser. We hope that all hairdressers will feel inspired to reach out to their local communities, schools and colleges, as we cannot do it alone. Together as a united industry we are much stronger. The sentiment of Hair The love is for every hairdresser and every client, not just on Valentine’s Day but every day.