Our resident environmental campaigner Karine Jackson appeared on stage at Pro Hair Live recently, championing her mission to go single use plastic-free and giving tips and advice on sustainability. Karine conducted plastic assessments on the Organic Colour Systems stand for visiting salon owners to help them to reduce their own single use plastic consumption.
I can’t believe Pro Hair Live has been and gone already, and what a great weekend it was. I made some brilliant contacts, set up some new deals and took on a new tea company, which is very exciting! I commend Pro Hair Live for their sustainable area and like anything new this can only grow.
This exhibition gives art teams a platform to show off their work and I was so pleased with the response from hairdressers asking me how they can work more sustainably and even better, talking to salon owners about what changes they are already making. Sustainability is really building momentum and it’s exciting.
In the words of Annemarie Bonneau “We don’t need a handful of humans doing zero waste perfectly, we need millions of humans doing it imperfectly.” It was charming to see my friends hiding their plastic water bottles. They might not yet have stopped using plastic bottles, but I could see that they were aware of what they’re doing and I know eventually they will stop.
I presented on the Business/Sustainability stage both days and have loved the ongoing response I’ve received from people who were at the event, and even those who have just heard about it. Thank you to all the brands that came to listen to what improvements they can make.
The Plastic Assessments on the Organic Colour Systems stand were a huge success. This is where we show you how to use our assessment structure to note how plastic is entering the salon, much like a fire risk assessment. When I highlighted to guests what was in their salons and what simple steps they could make to use less, they were excited to go back and implement these small changes.
Every day I feel a step closer to making a dent in our part of climate change.
I had a great chat on their stand with the team from Kingdom Coffee who pride themselves in producing ethical coffee and tea solutions that are environmentally friendly and energy-efficient.
Introducing this into the salon will be another small change we are going to implement. We already use Clipper Tea, the only tea bag without micro plastic inside. I don’t think people give tea bags a second thought but we use MILLIONS of them, and they have a big impact on the environment. If you’ve ever put tea bags in your compost and then found that they haven’t degraded, this is why!
We also presented perming live on the stand using Curlformers® by HairFlair. Perming is huge business for us, we’re doing 4 a day and clients are seeking us out for them, but we need to use plastic caps to seal them. Ann from Easy Dry listened to my issues with this and has sent me through some compostable solutions, which I can’t wait to utilise.
We rocked our sustainable show on the Platinum Stage sponsored by HairFlair Pro using Curlformers®. My art team manager Sophia planned a show based on sustainability, creating shapes using Curlformers® from items of waste we collected and studied.
We used old pieces of fabric to pull the hair through, giving an exploded bubble wrap look and we made a shaping tool out of a coat hanger and some (clean!) old tights. These were all from recycled materials found in our old art team drawers.
I have to say, I was impressed with my sustainable kit that I packed for the weekend, it enjoyed full use; cutlery set, reusable coffee cup, crochet makeup remover pad, body wash, reusable water bottle and a bamboo toothbrush.
I strive to ensure my kit doesn’t put a strain on any one resource. I was proud of how handy the kit was and more than once I was able to share cutlery therefore reducing single use utensils.
The one saying I think we all need to put at the forefront of our thinking is use less, waste less #uselesswasteless
The new budget has been announced and I noted that plastic packaging tax will come into force from April 2022, while manufacturers and importers whose products have less than 30% recyclable material will be charged £200 per tonne. All a step in the right direction but still a long time to wait!
I would love to hear from everyone that I had the pleasure of meeting at Pro Hair Live about the small changes they’re making. For the people I didn’t get to meet or couldn’t make the weekend, please share with me on Instagram as I’m always looking to learn new ways in which I can also improve!
