So we just got back from Las Vegas from CosmoProf. Now this is not the CosmoProf you think. CosmoProf stores all over the place, and there are some CosmoProf hair shows. But this CosmoProf is an international show, and it moves around the globe.

They do it every year in Bologna and in China and in Las Vegas and in South America.

This particular, industry event is more business than it is hair. It's it's the business of hair and products.

Manufacturers, plants who make products, companies who make products, come there. They have booths like a regular trade show, and distributors and and industry professionals go, and we talk. This is a business. It's what's coming up next year, what products are gonna be released, you know, what new companies are coming in.

Distributors talk to their manufacturers about, you know, how the product is selling, you know, what your complaints are, why it's not going well, or why one is going well. So this is basically a state of the union.

This past year was a little different, post COVID. It was a little bit smaller. Some of the international companies weren't there, but small enough that it made it really intimate to have really great conversations with, some product manufacturers, you know, how it's really affected our industry.

Bottles and plastic and caps for bottles, how it's there's there's really a shortage and it's taking longer and longer time. And you will probably see it with some of your product lines. Maybe not all of them, but you might see some back orders or change in packaging because they had to change to a new cap or a new bottle because they were short.

That really affects us all the way around.

Ingredient, companies, when when Texas had their freeze, that really affected the the flow of ingredients. So you're gonna see some products maybe swapping out one ingredient for another. Not that you would ever know that, but how that's really affected our industry.

Also, the and the most disturbing thing for me because despite the fact that I've been, in this end of the industry for many years now, I am still a hairdresser.

I still own have a license. I still went to school and then stood behind the chair for years just like most of you.

But to be at that world, at that business world, and listening to the people who are coming out with the craziest gimmick products and, how to sell this online and, you know, how to be the next, you know, take off, you know, bond multiplier type of thing. That's what they're looking for. They're really looking for the next gimmick product that's gonna really take off.

There's no meat on the bones here. There's no real good education or or product that stands out that they spend all their money on the best quality ingredients that help hair and help us. It's gimmick.

Social media has changed our industry to this type of, avenue or or highway that they wanna go down. Years ago, it was, we wanna make the best products for you guys so you can do hair.

And although a lot of us still think that they're doing that, behind the scenes, like I saw a costume's profile, it's all about the gimmick of a a funny or cool name or really cool packaging or or a fragrance and or combining a couple of those things together to to do a gimmick line and put it out on social media and and hope it takes off from us. And this is where we need to be educated. You really need to know how to shop. I mean, it's fun to get some of these crazy trendy things.

Sure. It it is. It's fun to get them and bring them into the salon and everybody's talking about them, so you wanna be part of it. Oh, look, I'm part of it.

And that's fine. But you do have to understand that that's all it is. It's a gimmick.

And there's a a few out there right now. Everybody And the more it's flashed all over social media like that, you know, it's all empty calories here. You know, it's like eating a bag of potato chips. It was satisfying for a minute, but it doesn't really get you to the goal of of where you wanna be. And that's what cosmoprof is all about. And we attend every year. This year, like I said, was was interesting.

Probably be going to the one in Bologna, because what they see and what they do overseas for hairdressers is completely different than what they market to us. They're more educated there than we are here, so it's easier to get gimmicky products off the ground.

And I I I feel that we need to be educated enough to know the difference between gimmick and real, to understand that's a a gimmick product and you might make some money selling it. And this product is what you use, how you use it to either avoid damage or help damage or get to the goal of the color that you wanna get to. There's a big difference between product use education and hair color education and hair education.

One of the reasons why we, you know, our hair freaks and color geeks class is two days because we start with a strand of hair and we work all the way through it.

And I was a little dismayed this year going, not seeing the companies and not having the conversations that I used to years ago about, wow, this company went here and they're doing this and they're using this technology in their products to to have better results and all that stuff. It's not like that. It used to be like that years ago and there were so many really great product lines out there. Now it's just all about who can come up with the next, you know, gimmick.

The next thing that will take off that everybody will buy on social media and all about the marketing companies that that do that for them and hiring the right marketing company to make this product sell a million bottles in in six months, and we're the ones who are left financially affected by that.

Our clients see it. We become salespeople and not just, immersing ourselves in our craft and and learning the ins and outs of our craft and hair and the difference between categories of products so we can make better educated decisions.

So, you know, along with having all these lawsuits that I'm doing right now for burnt scalps and seeing the bond multiplier thing, you know, take off, you know, they're gonna have, you know, bond multiplier in your in your hand lotion because it's such a gimmick now.

So I I see all the gimmick stuff going on. I'm doing more and more lawsuits for severely burnt clients because we're not taught how to avoid that. We're not taught what can cause that. Everybody's so busy selling us stuff that nobody's teaching us anything anymore.

If you've never been to a Hair Freaks or Color Geeks class, please come. They are hundred percent guaranteed if you are not satisfied with what you heard.

I guarantee you this is the game changing event that you have you have yet to attend in our industry.

This is brand free. So it's really just about teaching and not any of this gimmick stuff and talking about all this nonsense.

I'm hoping that, we make a change in this industry, that the people who really wanna know and are frustrated going from one gimmick to the next to the next and bouncing around like, like a pinball machine, trying to find the miracle product. There is no miracle product. There's never going to be a miracle product. I don't care what they tell you on social media. But getting taught the best information you can to to to make the best educated decision you can is going to really save your career and save you a ton of money in aggravation.

One of the things I've stressed for years to stylists as they sit in front of me at classes around the country is never become brand loyal.

I see this happen so much, buying into Paul Mitchell or Redken or Goldwell, and they become so brand loyal.

It is probably the one of the worst things, you know, you can do. This is this is one of these things where you drink coffee every day and then, you know, ten years from now, they say coffee is terrible for you. And you're like, shit, I've been drinking coffee every day.

The brand loyal thing is not real.

Brands get bought and sold every time we go to CosmoProf.

This one has now been acquired by this one. This company now is being made. They stopped having it made. It's a completely different formula.

This just happened to Wella a couple times over the last few years. It's been three different plants. It's a completely different formula, but people are brand loyal to Wella. Oh, it's Wella.

Oh, it's Wella. It's not Wella anymore.

It says the name of it on the box, but it's not Wella anymore. And this is what happens when you become brand loyal. And when we go to Cosmoprof, and we sit down with these people and you hear all the acquisitions that are happening, and this one just bought this, and this one just bought that, We we have to be better educated.

You you go brand loyal when you're not educated to the details. So it's easier to just, oh, I love their philosophy, their imagery. This is who I am. Look at I'm that kind of stylist. But if you're serious and you wanna make money and you wanna be a successful stylist behind the chair, good at their craft, good at cutting, good at color, understanding all that, and and being good at what you do, brand will will never get you there.

I have friends that have, as I grew up through the industry and, you know, was a platform artist and, you know, you see platform artists, they were with this company last year, now they're with this company.

Because the the higher you get, the less you care whose name is on the box.

And that's something that we really have to change and look at differently in our industry, because it can it can affect your your entire career business wise, what you believe is happening when you're using a product, the success that you that you have with it is all affected by this. So Leo and I always teach at all our classes. Right?

You make business decisions from here, and that's even standing behind the chair working on someone.

You're you're you're doing your profession. The decisions are made from here, not here. When you make a decision from here, it costs you money.

You gotta make the decisions from here. So anybody who is brand loyal is making their decisions from here, not from here.

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