Clairol Hair Coloring

In 1931, Lawrence M. Gelb, a chemical broker, discovered and bought "Clairol" hair color in Europe to market in the United States. From the start, he promoted Clairol with the idea that beautiful hair was every woman's right, and that hair color, then considered risqué, was no different from other cosmetics. With the 1956 introduction of "Miss Clairol," the first at-home hair coloring formula, Clairol hair color and care products revolutionized the world of hair color. The do-it-yourself hair color "was to the world of hair color what computers were to the world of adding machines," Bruce Gelb, who worked with his father and brother at Clairol, told New Yorker contributor Malcolm Gladwell.

The firm's 1956 marketing campaign for a new, Miss Clairol product ended the social stigma against hair coloring and contributed to America's lexicon. Shirley Polykoff's ad copy—which read "Does she or doesn't she? Hair color so natural only her hairdresser knows for sure!"—accompanied television shots and print photos of wholesome-looking young women, not glamorous beauties associated with professional hair color but attractive homemakers with children. With ads that showed mothers and children with matching hair color, Miss Clairol successfully divorced hair coloring from its sexy image. Moreover, women could use the evasive "only my hairdresser knows for sure" to avoid divulging the tricks they used to craft an appealing public self. For women in the 1950s, hair color was a "useful fiction—a way of bridging the contradiction between the kind of woman you were and the woman you were supposed to be," wrote Gladwell.

Hair color soon became an acceptable image-enhancing cosmetic. In 1959 Gelb's company was purchased by Bristol Meyers, which has continued to expand the line into the 1990s. From the decade Miss Clairol was introduced to the 1970s, the number of American women coloring their hair increased dramatically, from 7 to 40 percent. By the 1990s, store shelves were crowded with many brands of at-home hair colorings and the image of hair coloring had changed as the brands proliferated. Hair color was no longer something women hid. Instead women celebrated their ability to change their look on a whim. Supermodel Linda Evangelista would appear as a platinum blonde one day, a redhead the next, and a brunette the next. The brand Féria advertised hair color that didn't pretend to be natural. Clairol's ads accommodated this change as well. While keeping with the image of the-girl-next-door, Clairol's shampoo-in color Nice 'n Easy ads featured Julia Louis-Dreyfus, well-known as Elaine on the popular sitcom Seinfeld, spotting women on the street and giving them public hair colorings. Clairol had initiated an appealing formula that gave women new freedom to shape their image as they pleased.

—Joan Leotta

Further Reading:

"Clairol's Influence on American Beauty and Marketing." Drug & Cosmetic Industry. New York, August, 1996.

Gladwell, Malcolm. "True Colors." New Yorker. New York, March22, 1999, 70-81.