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SALON SMART 2023

Positive and inspiring insights from Creative HEAD Magazine’s Salon Smart event. Despite the challenges facing the salon industry, Creative HEAD Magazine’s Salon Smart event was a beacon of positivity, innovation, and inspiration. Attendees participated in a variety of activities including listening to guest speakers, networking, and live Q&A sessions. The event aimed to help salon and barbershop owners and managers get inspired and learn from leading industry talent and innovators who are driving change in the field. Among the standout presenters were KIT members Maddi Cook, Danielle Garner, and Joe Hemmings.

Maddi Cook, the founder of Boss Your Salon, shared her perspective on money management, highlighting the importance of pricing. She pointed out that many salons base their pricing on copying others or guesswork, which is not sustainable. Maddi’s approach is based on knowing and charging your worth, emphasising that pricing should be done correctly from the beginning to ensure there is enough money in the business to cover overhead costs.

Danielle Garner, who advocates for workplace well-being, stressed how important it is for businesses to prioritise their employees’ well-being. She shared her own experiences and recommended that business owners treat well-being as an essential part of their operations. Danielle also shared how she supports her stylists in maintaining a positive attitude by offering guided meditation sessions to clients when they’re visibly upset.

Joe Hemmings, who discussed structuring for success, highlighted his journey managing Bloggs Salon for 12 years. He shared how his shift in perspective towards humanised and transparent management styles transformed his business and outlook on salon management models. Communication, he emphasised, is crucial, and he believes that salon owners should prioritise getting to know their team members and what motivates them.

It’s wonderful to see KIT members using their platform to inspire and empower the next generation. By sharing their voices and experiences, they are not only promoting wellness and inclusivity within the industry but also encouraging others to create a positive impact. Here are some potential ways that KIT members are inspiring future generations.

METAVERSE FASHION WEEK 2023: A CELEBRATION OF FASHION AND TECHNOLOGY

The “Future Heritage” theme at Metaverse Fashion Week 2023 perfectly blends honouring the past and embracing the future. The event will recognise the contributions of fashion legends such as Vivienne Westwood, who have left an indelible mark on the industry.

In addition to paying homage to the late fashion icon, the event is an opportunity to showcase the latest innovations and trends in fashion technology. Attendees will be treated to a range of futuristic designs, from smart fabrics that change colour with the touch of a button to wearable technology that can monitor your heart rate and other vital signs.

Metaverse Fashion Week 2023 is proving that the intersection of fashion and technology is an exciting and rapidly evolving field, with endless possibilities for creativity and innovation. It will be interesting to see what new developments emerge in the years to come, as designers continue to push the boundaries of what is possible with technology and materials.

The event is organised by Decentraland and UNXD, in collaboration with the Spatial and OVER metaverses, which built on the popularity of last year’s inaugural event. More than 100,000 guests attended MVFW22, which featured over 60 well-known fashion brands, including Dolce & Gabbana, Tommy Hilfiger, Selfridges, Guo Pei, Paco Rabanne, Hugo Boss, and DKNY. This year Dolce & Gabbana will be showcasing the winning designs from its Future Reward competition, while Tommy Hilfiger will be offering daily product drops and AI-generated fashion designs. DKNY will bring its signature SoHo landmark wall to the metaverse.

In addition, there will be community-involved interactive activities, including a virtual party featuring wearable NFT airdrops organised by Diesel and HAPE. Leading digital fashion houses such as DRESSX, Phygicode, and The Fabricant have also partnered with MVFW to celebrate the community’s creations.

The Alo Sanctuary, where virtual yoga and meditation sessions will be held, was designed to bring users together through shared experiences around yoga and wellness. Alo will donate to mental health initiatives through its nonprofit foundation Alo Gives for every user who completed mindful movement quests through the immersive experience. In addition, Roblox gamified user experience is offering exclusive items that users could unlock via daily meditation and yoga classes, such as specific clothing and yoga accessories that could be worn within and outside the Alo Sanctuary.

As the world adapts to the ongoing pandemic, virtual events like MVFW23 have become increasingly popular. This year’s event promises to be even more exciting and diverse, with new concepts like virtual parties and metaverse wellness taking centre stage. Overall, MVFW23 will be an incredible event that you won’t want to miss. Whether you’re a fashion enthusiast or just looking for some virtual fun, there’s something for everyone at this event.

ARE WE STILL TREATING MENOPAUSE LIKE A TABOO?

As we enter a new era of inclusive and holistic beauty for all — menopause beauty is becoming a booming beauty niche. Menopause is shifting out of taboo and into the spotlight as women worldwide seek a deeper understanding of changes during this time, carving out plenty of opportunity for beauty and wellness industries to support, educate and empower. One big trend is menopausal skin and hair care — focusing specifically on the particular needs of the skin and hair of menopausal women.

Kindra provides oestrogen-free solutions such as supplements and lotions for those experiencing menopause symptoms.  are on a mission to “change the way women [experience] menopause,”  and shift the mindset that menopause is “something to be cured rather than a natural phase of a woman’s life.” said HongJoo Sun, Kindra’s CEO. 

Although there has been a boom of innovative brands popping up, representation in the beauty scene is unfortunately still lacking and the very little that is shown isn’t inclusive with an outdated perspective on menopause.

Redefining the Menopause, found that two-thirds of women experiencing menopause or perimenopause feel that brands aren’t doing enough to support them, while 76% don’t feel represented at all by brands’ advertising and marketing. The study found that the most common menopausal symptoms were related to negative impacts on feelings and mood (67%) and self-confidence (59%). Through aspirational advertising, brands have an opportunity to address this lack of self-confidence through better representation.

Hair-care brand, Better Not Younger is aimed at selling shampoo, conditioner, scalp serum, and ingestibles for women 45 years and above. The company’s communication strategy also acknowledges women over 45 years old and accurately reflects their lifestyles. The brand began producing video content including a 42-second video asking women what life after 45 looks like. Sonsoles Gonzales, Better Not Younger founder, and CEO said she had only seen brands attempting to cater to the age group by using old stereotypes like a grandmother, a woman gardening, or a woman on a cruise in advertisements. “Women my age are starting businesses, dating again, and hiking mountains,” she said. “It’s not just about looking great, but it’s also about showing them in situations where they can see themselves.” Since launching, Better Not Younger has grown sales by 50% month-over-month,  

So why does Menopause representation matter?

By 2025, 1.1 billion women will be menopausal due to women living longer. The average woman can expect to spend 40% of her life in postmenopause. 

Another reason menopause representation matters are because this stage of life accounts for a large sector of the beauty industry rather than the small niche market it is portrayed to be. The AARP found in a national survey of 2,000 women that 70% of those ages 40 and older want to see more beauty and personal care products for perimenopausal and menopausal women. The survey also found that Women 50 and older spend $22 billion a year on beauty products.

As we break more taboos surrounding menopause and build a stronger inclusive beauty space we hope to see more inclusion of all ages in beauty and better representation of all demographics and niches.

HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S MONTH

The month of March is International Womens Month, which is a very important month to KIT — not only are we celebrating our birthday but we are celebrating a community of powerhouse women within KIT and worldwide.

We believe it is so important to celebrate this month as well as educate and advocate for gender equality. The fight towards gender equality and closing the pay gap is all of our responsibility as a society to advocate for and assist in. Let’s take a look at the statistics:

• In 2022, women earned 17% less than men on average.
• In 2019 women held only 28% of managerial positions globally – almost the same proportion as in 1995

So where does that leave the women in the hair industry? 83% of people working in hairdressing and barbering and 94% of people working in beauty are female.

2020 research done by Phorest Salon Software revealed that although 45% of women in the UK salon industry are university educated only 52% of women in our industry earn over £25K in comparison to 90% of men in the industry earning over that amount. Absurd right?

On top of being underpaid, like many women in other industries women in the salon industry are not supported enough and fall victim to impostors syndrome and lack of confidence. Phorest Salon Software’s research unveiled that women rated their confidence as a business person on average as 5 out of 10 — compared to men who averaged 8.2 out of 10.

Statistically, Women in all industries are unfortunately less likely to have access to social protection, this includes in workplace insurance such as pensions, unemployment benefits, or maternity protection. 

How have things improved?

Women are empowering themselves through entrepreneurship, in 2021 women started 39.9% of businesses, and the percentage of women-owned startups has been growing and relatively consistent. Additionally, of the 56% of women who own an independent business, 33%  started it from scratch. Talk about some self-made entrepreneurs!

Here are some badass women that are helping to improve the beauty industry for women and deserve a massive shout: 

Maddi Cook — The pricing queen herself, Maddi is a hair and beauty business coach who uses her platform to share financial advice to business owners within our industry which has contributed £30M+ more profit for the hair + beauty industry.

Sharmadein Reid — Founder of The Stack World a global community of thousands of mission-driven women. With a drive for gender equity, she utilises community building to achieve that and The Stack World is just that by sharing the tools and building a peer circle.

The British Beauty Council —  The British Beauty Council are on the movement of closing the gender gap in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) jobs by creating The Future Talent Programme supported by the Department for Education, The Careers & Enterprise Company and STEM Learning, to develop the first dedicated beauty-related resource for secondary schools, showcasing and demonstrating the enriching careers across the beauty and STEM sector. 

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THE AESTHETIC GAP: LOST IN TRANSLATION

At KIT we are interested in looking at social media trends, and pushing and driving macro trends in the beauty space. We previously touched on how TikTok style aesthetics and style cores could influence hair services.

Styles such as the Clean Girl Aesthetic have managed to enter macro trends with claw clips, gold hoops, and slicked-back hair trending on a global scale. These aesthetics have also breathed new life into hairstyles such as the mullet, curtain bangs, and different renditions of layers from Air-cuts, and C-cuts to shags and wolf-cuts. 

However, rather than look at it from a consumer perspective, we would like to dig deeper and find out just how these trends are affecting hair services from an industry perspective. Our first research unveiled that perhaps these trends are still micro trends and haven’t yet merged into the mainstream — social media hype and buzz doesn’t always translate into macro trends and some trends are lived out through social media. 

As these aesthetic trends are driven by content creators and user-generated content there is little professional hair backing, so what to the ordinary eye could be described as a neutral vanilla-toned blonde, could be defined differently from a professional hair colourist. Perhaps there is a communication gap/ things are missing in translation and the Vanilla Girl Aesthetic isn’t even Vanilla Blonde at all but a cool-toned champagne blonde. 

Another avenue to investigate is in understanding the demographics following these trends. As of January 2023,  it was recorded by TikTok that 60% of their users are between the ages of 16-24, and 26% are between the ages of 25-44. 80% are between the ages of 16-34. That means TikToks audience is predominantly composed of Gen Alpha, Gen Z, and Millenials. Whilst Millennials are the largest demographic in the US and have a spending power worth $2.5 trillion, the demographic that could be following these trends the most are Gen Z and Gen Alpha who do not have a spending power as high as Millenials hence why this trend hasn’t become the macro trend it could be.

However, TikTok’s views on these aesthetics and style trends could be an indicator for the future to come. If these trends are going viral reaching over a  billion views on TikTok — how will that translate 5 years later when Gen Alpha and Gen X are older and will have more spending power to participate in these trends?

Hair experts, we would love to know your thoughts on this trend gap.

WHY ARE HUMANISED BUSINESSES  WINNING?

Humanising businesses lies in putting people at the centre of a company’s intentions rather than money. What does that mean? 

Prioritising your team and your customers through creating an environment of understanding that people matter and that business is personal, in all its interactions and teamwork it needs to run synchrony and harmoniously.

People power businesses and awareness, compassion, and empathy power people. Culture and cultivating awareness are some of the most powerful tools to humanise a business nowadays – awareness starts with an understanding of the way your energy affects others and understanding the bigger picture without letting the ego create all the motives and intentions. 

Our founder, Karrie, explained “humanised businesses are the way forward because people want to be part of something bigger and they need to feel that they are part of something that works for them, it’s all about the people and the culture that is created. Hustle culture and owner-oriented business models just don’t resonate with people anymore.” 

Why? Because of how our society is growing and evolving – Millennials and Gen Z are now the biggest global generation, making up 64% of the world’s population affecting not just consumer behaviour but also challenging the status quo of our societal values. Humanised business cultures are closing the generational gap for both the people working within businesses and the consumers supporting them.

While salary is the most important factor in deciding on a job, Gen Z values salary less than every other generation, they care about values. Companies must demonstrate their commitment to a broader set of societal challenges such as sustainability, climate change, and hunger. Some of the values that are most valuable to a business for employees are characteristics such as being; socially conscious, technology-focused, ethnically diverse, experience-driven, health-conscious, and financially and spiritually conscious. 

And the benefits of humanised businesses? A healthy culture is a fertile place for business growth and this is what the industry needs especially in approaches to issues such as the decline in apprentices coming through the system. Looking at the bigger picture in the grand scheme of our industry’s growth and progression. “There has to be a paradigm shift on how businesses are seen and where the priority should be. We can see that this is a business model that is both modern and successful in paving the way forward to a closer-knit, more diverse, and inclusive industry cultivating  and growing its younger generation of talent.”

KIT 2023 TECH PREDICTIONS AND WHAT IT MEANS FOR BEAUTY

These days, hair care products are high-tech and science-focused. Last year was the era of skincare-focused, scalp-forward hair care, but this might be the year of tech in all things beauty. Just one example?

As the wave of buzz about the Metaverse ebbs and flows, we are gaining more insight and understanding of this murky digital world and its capacity to be a vessel for change. One sector of technology that could revolutionise our approach to haircare as well as push a more sustainable beauty industry is Biotechnology. The shift towards clean beauty emphasised the use of more naturally derived and plant-based ingredients, however much research has unveiled this to be an unsustainable practice.

What exactly is Biotechnology? It is defined as the exploitation of biological processes to create ingredients. A subsect of biotech that is buzzing right now is white biotechnology which is devoted to utilising living microorganisms and enzymes to synthesise energy-saving, easier degradable products and is taking over the perfume industry making it much more sustainable. Did you know, an estimated 200.00 roses are needed to produce only a few millilitres of rose oil? 

So how will biotechnology revolutionise haircare? It can lead to sustainable product innovation, give greater insight and understanding of hair and how to care for it, and could possibly push a new approach to hair care. Upcycling is a concept we are becoming more aware of and it is coming in strong for the beauty industry. The Upcycled Beauty Company has launched a new active ingredient aimed at hair care – The Faba TONIQ, a water-soluble by-product of hummus production. 

Yes, you read that correctly, this by-product of hummus production has been coined “the new natural, upcycled hair-styling active for super-sleek, long-lasting curls.” This upcycled active is a source of protein, peptides, polypeptides, and carbohydrates that help to strengthen and condition the hair. A combination of polysaccharides and oligosaccharides makes the curl retention long-lasting and provides frizz control even in humid environments.

Another concept being deeply studied by biotech is the concept of hair memory which could create a shift in hair care becoming more focused on maintaining or adapting hair’s memory – that’s where companies like Arey come in, using its vitamin-, mineral-, and antioxidant-rich formula to reverse hair aging on a cellular level. The team isolated peptide—amino acid chains that form proteins typically synonymous with skin and hair health like collagen, elastin, and keratin. When applied topically to the skin, and in this case the scalp, the peptides act as little messengers, triggering cells to perform specific functions such as building collagen, elastin, and keratin, encouraging hair and skin to look and act younger, thus slowing the greying of hair.

We’re quite excited to see the innovation of biotechnology in hair care, it’s here to change the status quo.