This Christmas, a Nailsworth hair salon will be letting its hair down to celebrate 15 years as a cruelty-free, ethically driven Aveda outlet.
But if you thought hair and beauty can’t help the climate, think again.
Claire Frances Hair Design, which has been trading in Cossack Square since 1994, is currently working hard to keep pace with seasonal demand for makeover magic from its regular customers.
“As we get closer to Christmas, we find everything we do is in huge demand though colours remain a key focus of our business,” says owner Claire Uzzell.
“I’m lucky to have such a fantastic team here in the salon.”
But in pace with growing concerns about what hair salons can do to help combat climate change, Claire says that her business proudly flies the flag for Aveda – the 100 percent vegan salon network.
“As part of the Aveda group, all our products are manufactured with 100% wind power through renewable energy credits and carbon offsets. And 83 per cent of Aveda’s waste is re-used or recycled,” she adds.
The Aveda approach ensures every tiny element of day-today business in a salon is made sustainable.
But when it comes to waste hair, surely that all ends up being swept away and binned?
Far from it, says Claire: “We work with the Green Salon Collective. Hairdressing produces enough waste every year to fill 50 football stadiums and it has traditionally ended up as landfill, but because hair is a protein it can be composted,” she explains.
And because hair is great at soaking up oil, it’s also now being used on the front line of ecological emergencies: “Hair from our salon is taken by the Collective to make hair booms and mats.”
And the lopped-off locks have already worked wonders: “Earlier this year a spill from farmland in Northern Ireland saw red diesel leaking into the sea. Many of the shoreline rocks had trapped the oil and the Green Salon Collective used 30-45kgs of hair over two days to successfully operate a clean-up.”
