Why clients should use professional hair products?

How do we keep our clients away from cheap home care?

Is there anything worse than spending hours upon hours transforming your client’s hair for them to go home and wash their hair with a bottle of £2 head and shoulder from Tesco! What is more cringy than when Susan tells you she loves how her favourite Pantene shampoo makes her hair feel. So how do we keep our client's hands off this rubbish they are layering onto their hair. We have broken it down for you in hope that you can advise your clients during consultations without feeling like a salesman.

Why are cheap products bad for the hair?

Get what you pay for right? Well, the cheaper the product, the means it has normally been mass-produced. This means that it is more likely to contain harsh chemicals. These harsh chemicals can in fact do damage to the hair and scalp. What are these harsh chemicals?

SULFATES- sulfates, also known as sodium lauryl sulfates, are the cleaning agents in your shampoo which are purely added for your shampoo to lather.

PARABENS- Parabens are used in your shampoo and this is to increase the shelf life of the product. These work by preventing any bacteria to grow in the shampoo. Certain parabens are known to mimic certain female hormones, and these can cause serious health conditions.

DIMETHICONE – this ingredient is a particularly hated one in our industry as this is what causes a layer and build-up of silicone on our client’s hair. It builds a layer over the hair shaft and can cause us problems when working with the hair and can also prevent any moisture or oil to enter the hair and can cause irritation to the scalp by clogging up the pores.

FRAGRANCES- let’s face it, we are all a sucker for a good smell, who wants to coat their hair in a nice oil that smells like drains. unfortunately, when the bottle says it smells just like lavender, this doesn’t mean in the lab they have added lavender to the product to produce these smells. It normally means they have mixed loads and loads of chemicals together to try and produce a smell that smells similar to the real thing. They do not need to list all these chemicals individually and can purely address these as fragrances or perfumes. These chemicals have bigger health conditions that affect more than just the hair and scalp.

ALCOHOL- unfortunately, we can find alcohol in a lot of home hair care products, these can cause our hair to become very dry and brittle. We should make sure our clients know to steer clear of alcohol substances like propanol and isopropyl as these can make the hair extremely dry. These sorts of harsh chemicals are added to products as a thickening agent.

How do I know what to stock in my salon?

Unfortunately, all these facts are not enough to keep our client's hands-off these bad chemicals. So how else can we make them realise that they need to make big changes to their home care routine? Let's think about the thing that put our clients off buying homecare from us professionals. We all know the main reason why people choose a supermarket over a salon is the PRICE! But price really doesn’t need to play a big part in it all. Let's break down how we can make this more affordable for our clientele.
First make sure that you are stocking products that are not completely out of your client's cost range, if your clientele really varies then think about stocking more than one line of products so you are able to offer professional home care at different price ranges. This then gives your clients more options and they then may feel more confutable moving over to professional haircare from yourself. You also need to think about the services you offer and what services are your most popular. For myself, my clientele and services are highly made up of blondes and extensions. This helps me narrow down the most important hair care products that I need to stock in my salon.

Consultation is key!

Maybe you are not sure how you approach the subject, don’t worry about that part and maybe let the products do the talking for you. Keep it simple and each time you use a product in your client's hair during their service, once you have used it just simply place the product in front of them on the section. Let them know ‘I have just run some oil through the ends of your hair as it feels as though it's lacking some moisture, il pop it here for you in case you would like to have a read of it’. Maybe think about labelling your products on the bottom with the price, this will help your client comfortably decide if this is in their budget without having to bring up the subject.

Most importantly you need to remember that your clients visit you and pay for your service because you are the professional. Don’t be afraid to ask your clients about their home care routine, this is something you should talk about In your consultation. There is a lot you can gather from learning about how your clients look after their hair at home. Maybe your client is extremely busy and doesn’t have much time to give to their hair, just a quick wash and off they go. This client may really benefit from a blow-dry spray that will help reduce the time it takes for their hair to dry. You may feel like you do want to recommend this as you think your client may feel like your trying to sell them something to make yourself a bit of commission but maybe this client will be recommended this product elsewhere, maybe she will read about it and think ‘why did my hairdresser never mention this to me. She has now lost a little bit of trust in you.

Training staff to keep salon standards high.

If you own a salon that has several stylists it may be a good idea to have regular team meetings to ensure that all your stylists are approaching home care recommendations in the same manner and that there all making the effort. If a client is sat next to another client with their different stylist and this client hears the other stylist talking about home care with their client but this clients stylist has not brought this up then this client would feel as though they did not receive the same service and it is likely this client may not return to the salon.

We hope this will help you feel more confident to offer professional hair care to your clients. Let us know in the comments below how you get on with recommending professional products to your clients after reading our blog.