Toronto-based makeup artists and hairstylists have a new way to connect with clients. As of this month, on-demand beauty app beGlammed has expanded to Toronto, its first international market. The L.A.-based company already operates in 19 American cities.
Read MorePantene has enlisted some of the NFL’s top players to star in a new ad campaign. This surprising Super Bowl–themed installation of the brand’s “Strong Is Beautiful” initiative features fan favourites like Dallas Cowboy Jason Witten and Pittsburgh Steeler DeAngelo Williams spending some quality time with their daughters at the hair salon.
Read MoreLast week, Pantene kicked off its #8or8 challenge, asking women to “choose their 8”—either donating $8 or eight inches of hair (the minimum length needed to be made into a wig) to the P&G brand’s Beautiful Lengths program. Launched in 2007, Pantene Beautiful Lengths helps create free, real-hair wigs for women who have lost their hair during cancer treatment. So far, the program has collected more than 100,000 ponytails in Canada alone and raised the funds to make more than 2,400 wigs, distributed through the Canadian Cancer Society.
Read MoreTomorrow, French natural beauty brand L’Occitane will open the doors to its latest premium boutique, located in the Toronto Eaton Centre. Featuring elevated design elements (including a storefront adorned with real immortelle flowers, a signature ingredient), the shop will place a greater focus on the company’s skincare, with a separate Beauty Room for consumers to receive consultations and mini facials.
Read MoreConsumer demand for not-found-in-nature rainbow hair shows no sign of fading. After eight consecutive quarters of growth, U.S. sales of bright salon hair colour in Q1 were up 48 percent versus the same quarter in 2014, according to recent data from global consulting and research firm Kline. Leading the way in this surge was Joico’s Vero K-Pak Color Intensity dye, which saw a 208 percent growth over the same time period last year. In its analysis, Kline acknowledged the influence of pastel-haired celebrities on the trend, notably Kelly Osbourne and Katy Perry.
Read MoreSocial media is highly visual by nature and tends to be dominated by women, making platforms like Instagram, Facebook and Twitter the perfect places for beauty brands to tell their stories and promote their products. Last week, Toronto-based social-technology marketing firm Engagement Labs released a ranking of the top hair, skincare and cosmetics brands on social media based on their eValue score, which measures user engagement, impact and responsiveness on a scale of zero to 100.
Read MoreHitting Canadian shelves in late March, Dessange haircare is the latest European beauty import. Created by the House of Dessange—an haute salon with 500 locations in more than 45 countries—the line promises salon-quality care at home, with a focus on protecting colour (natural or not).
Read MoreRuth Crilly knows her way around the beauty aisle—she writes reviews for her nearly five-year-old blog, A Model Recommends, and for The Telegraph—yet she claims to struggle with how to expertly use many hair products. “I’m quite low maintenance so I can’t be bothered with things that take a long time,” says Crilly, hence her affinity for dry shampoo. She was approached by product formulators to lend her insights for Colab—which is just landing in Canada—and she in turn recommended bringing other industry insiders like celeb hairstylist Gow Tanaka and makeup artists/bloggers Sam and Nic Chapman (a.k.a. Pixiwoo) into the mix. Their collaborative effort led to what she calls a totally different—and truly invisible—dry shampoo.
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