When it comes to shampoo, it’s not enough to snap up a coveted, pricey brand. Knowing which shampoo techniques to use, as well as which to avoid, can be just as vital to a healthy mane.
Marketers can use some of that information to their advantage. It’s all about building trust with the consumer – and that can work in at least a couple of ways: By educating consumers through content marketing, social media or email newsletters, or by taking care to provide information only through more discreet and limited channels, such as via hairstylists, salons and other relatively closed networks.
Much depends on whom the customer is more likely to believe—their hairstylist, or the brand’s marketing department. Why not both?
Right tools for the right ‘do
A Huffington Post piece boiled down several shampooing rules, courtesy of PopSugar’s beauty editor. Any or all would seem to provide good communication bridges between client and consumer. After all, who wants to pay into three figures for a bottle of shampoo when their technique (or lack thereof) ends up effectively washing that investment down the drain?
Doing your hair up right includes:
- Grandma was right when she told Grandpa to go soak his head. Get things good and wet before applying shampoo. And be sure to rinse well after to avoid buildup.
- Those long locks can get in the way, but try not to pile them on top of your head after lathering. Knots and tangles happen more easily with the “hay piled onto the hilltop” approach.
- Be gentle, and use only your fingertips to massage your scalp. This is also true of many other activities in life.
- Only lather, rinse and repeat if your hair is filthy. Otherwise, shampoo twice a week (more often if co-workers or roommates begin emailing you from across the room).
- Those with thick, curly or dry hair should shampoo with just conditioner; many shampoos contain sulfates that draw moisture out of the hair.
Plenty to argue about there, depending on whatever advice others are handing out. Like, say, the folks at Buzzfeed, who offer up these nuggets:
- Avoid rinsing your hair in hard water. If that’s not practical, use a chelating shampoo once a week. And think about installing a filter on your shower head.
- Bleached hair needs regular use of a clarifying shampoo.
- Certain silicone agents in shampoos can eventually dry out your hair, even though they feel nice and slippery when initially applied.
- Prone to the frizzies? Dry your mane with a t-shirt instead of a friction-creating towel. Just don’t use your man’s favorite t-shirt.
- Unless you slip into it right after. In which case, add at least 30 minutes to projected self-prep time.
- Purple-hued shampoo will counteract the natural yellowing effects of gray hair. And rinse that silver fox with lemon at least once a month.
Dry shampoo goes in the night before, to take advantage of bedtime tosses and turns. Even more effective when combined with wet t-shirt activities, above.
Information you can use
The trick to turning those tips, and others, into something that will stay with consumers is a matter of taking a creative approach.
No one likes a lecture. Just about anyone can respond to images that conjure fun, excitement and a bit of raciness. You seriously didn’t call anything to mind while checking out the tips about t-shirts? With a little risk-taking and a beefier budget, marketers might even create video t-shirt suggestions as a way of starting a conversation. The right kind of conversation, of course, as best befits the brand/salon in question.
Other tips and techniques might spark occasion for discussion, even argument. Not too much. Just enough to keep those conversations – and is there a salon anywhere without conversation? — coming back to where they belong.
And you’ve known all along where that is, right?