It’s International Women’s Day 2017 and at Glasshouse, we’re taking sometime to reflect. As a business that primarily caters to women, we’re passionate about women and their boundless capabilities. We love being able to provide a moment of downtime for everyone from full-time mums, to freelancers to tightly scheduled CEOs, and if we play even a small role in helping the women who come through our doors feel happy and good about themselves, we’ve done what we set out to do.
We’ve always believed, first and foremost, that hair and beauty care should function as self-care, rather than as something which means bowing to external pressures and unrealistic standards. In recent years, there’s been a bit of a sea change in the beauty industry, potentially guided by the emergence of beauty bloggers and vloggers, primarily female, who demonstrate makeup as an art form that women take part in for the sake of enjoying it, rather than because they feel compelled to bow to patriarchal ideals.
Beauty in 2017, on a large scale, seems to be marketed with women wanting to look good with their own satisfaction in mind. In the middle of last year, it was revealed that for the first time the anti-ageing industry was in decline: younger women are not investing in products that promise youth in the same way as their predecessors did, and instead buying products more targeted towards living in the moment.
For this reason, many brands have had to rethink their strategies, though others have shared our self-care ethos from their earliest beginnings. We are always continuing to expand our beauty offerings here in the salon, but we tend to put the focus on products from the likes of Ilia Beauty, RMS Jane Iredale. This is because they pack a double self-care punch: as well as providing results which bring out confidence in anyone who uses them, natural ingredients mean many of them are actively good for you too, bringing out your best in more ways than one.
This is the approach we take when we’re doing hair too: we’ll always ensure that our clients leave the salon with hair that looks great, but it’s important to us that it’s also in healthy condition so that you continue to get the most out of it even after you leave us.
To us, self-care means looking after yourself inside and out, and it’s the core of who we are. This International Women’s Day we hope you’re feeling great, and we hope – if you can – that you take a moment to appreciate yourself, whether you’re a beauty brainbox or a bare-faced babe.
Words: Lauren O’Neill
Image: Natassia Clucas for Pansy
