Zoë Irwin wants YOU to offer this hair service
The John Frieda creative director on her hair facial service launch – and why every stylist should be delivering this to clients
by CATHERINE | DOCUMENTS
Zoë Irwin
The past couple of years has seen the ‘skinification’ of hair cranked up, as the hair world is influenced in both ingredients and treatments by skincare and beauty. Well, Zoë Irwin has taken this to heart with her hair facial service at John Frieda… and she’s adamant that this service is one that ALL salons and stylists should be offering its clientele.
“I realised that I learn a lot from beauty treatments, and that women understand the idea of a facial. You have a super deep cleanse and you probably learn more about cleansing your own skin better,” explains Zoë. “They detox you, take out all your impurities, and then they start adding. I love that. It’s one mask on top of another, I love the layered process of it. The psychology behind it is that when you leave, you’ve got this beautiful skin. You’re like, ‘oh my god, I’m going to go back in a month, because this is so good’. But ultimately when you go home, you double cleanse, you add a mask the next week, you don’t let that skin go. No one does. So, I thought, ‘why aren’t we doing this in hair? Why aren’t we levelling this up?’.”
Now, that’s what she’s done with the £120 service at the iconic John Frieda in London’s Mayfair. The service starts with a detoxifying cleanse, removing coppers and damaging metals from the water and breaking down product residue so that she’s working with a clean base.
From a trip to India, Zoë learned massage techniques that she’s transferred into the next step, an incredible scalp massage. “When you start massaging people’s heads and necks, you can’t mess around. You’ve got to know your stuff,” she adds, “but the power of massage is massive.” Yes, it’s relaxing, but the action helps stimulate the cells in the hair follicles, powering up that growth factor.
“I want to people to come out of this service knowing much more about this impact,” she says. “When they come to the basin, I give them a mirror, and I teach them the movements. Then I use a scalp exfoliator, the Virtue ones, very gentle – and I show them in the mirror where and how to place it. Then I teach them the massage movements. So, I’ve totally clarified and got this clean base, which means that the hair will now accept product much, much better.”
Now, the “hair’s like a sponge”, and Zoë will layer on a strengthening treatment, followed by a moisturising mask. “Hair will only accept so much at one time. It’s like a supercharged treatment … I’m trying to pre-empt the issues that people have with treatments – ‘I don’t want one on my hair today because I want my blow dry to last’. That’s because it’s in the wrong place. It’s all stuff that you and I know, but the consumer doesn’t know. It’s like a prescriptive service; you come out and your hair is beaming. I finish with an acidic gloss that will shut everything down. I’m using cosmetic plus hydration.”
The big message is how important the scalp is – perfectly timed with the social media obsession with all things scalp care.
@zoeirwinhair
It was for a press event to launch a Manta brush that Zoë realised she had something interesting in her hands… “The press just went nuts for how it was all being shown,” she recalls. “The Daily Mail’s Lucia Ferrari went on the front page along with a page inside. From that we had people come from all over the country, and I realised that this isn’t something that people are thinking about enough. Now, we sell it as a packaged service like you see in beauty, you can buy three together.”
Zoë’s philosophy is all about restoring hair to its healthiest, strongest state to deliver the best results. “When you’re colouring hair, you’re colouring the quality of what’s in front of you. So, if I address that before I colour it, I can therefore give the colour that people want.”
Her treatments are divided into sessions. The process begins with a consultation, where Zoë assesses the steps needed to achieve the desired results. Next is the “radiance reset”, featuring a deep cleansing treatment and massage therapy 101. “They learn how and where the to put the product on,” she explains. Finally, the hair is ready for colour. “When they come for their colour, they get the best colour they’ve ever had, because their hair’s in the right condition. It works.”
Image: Karolina grabowska
Zoë’s seen raging success across the board with her clientele. “It’s about £120, but people now just come in for it. And my clients come to me just to have the head massage. They often go out with wet hair, but they come for the massage because it’s extremely powerful, you know?”
She’s a fierce advocate for hair getting the attention to detail that it deserves. “We put all this effort into our skin, but people stop at their hair,” she muses. “But stylists can take their skill and package it, make it so easy to understand and for the client to buy into. This is something that I feel that hairdressers everywhere should be doing. I’ve really seen how important it is and how people love it. You sell the dream.”
