Love Hair is one hair salon in Hong Kong that is embracing all things eco-friendly and sustainable, we sat down with their founder Toni Sutton-Marcus to chat more about it
Hong Kong is home to many career driven and inspirational women, from local fashion designers like Sarah Lai, to founders of sustainable platforms like Womb and boutique yoga studios like Nikita Ramchandani. Love Hair is a sustainable hair salon located in Central that opts for eco-friendly and low chemical products to achieve your beauty goals. We sat down with the founder Toni Sutton-Marcus to talk more about eco-consciousness. (Pssst: Check out our full review on Love Hair here.)
An interview with Toni Sutton-Marcus
Hey, Toni. Thanks for sitting down with us. Tell us about Love Hair and why sustainability and eco-consciousness is important to you.
I think, in this day and age, nobody can start a business without thinking about the earth. So, we were just like: How can we shrink our carbon footprint? We recycle as much as we can, the coffee is fair trade, the water we use is all filtered water – we just implemented things that eliminate plastic bottles as much as possible.
And we incorporated that into the design too. The shelves and the dividers are all made from reclaimed wood for example. They may only seem like small things, but as a whole they all minimise our footprint.
That’s really great to hear! What about on the hair products side?
So, we have two ranges that we use; one is very clean and the other is sulphate-, paraben- and chloride-free. It just depends on the client really. Some people want really clean products, and some people want less chemicals, but still best results. For us as hairdressers – yes, we want less chemicals, but we still need results.
I mean, if I could rub strawberries in your hair and create the colour that I wanted, then I would – but, unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that. (laughter ensues throughout the salon…)
We use Kevin Murphy, which is sulphate free, paraben free and cruelty free [and the packaging is so dreamy – Ed.], and we also have some John Masters, which are 70-99% natural/organic.
And how are people in Hong Kong taking to the sustainability element of the business? Sometimes it can be a hard sell…
At the beginning, when we started last year, I was thinking: How do I portray that we do have an environmentally conscious aspect, but that hair is still important. Sometimes, I think that natural products can seem a bit boring in a way.
We don’t have a marketing budget, so word of mouth is really important to us, and we are active on Instagram with before and after shots, which I think helps too.
Plus, I have team of seven stylists that are fantastic at what they do. We having trainings in the salon every eight weeks, so we are all very on trend, in terms of the industry, so that really helps.
Speaking of trends, what can we expect to see coming through as we move into the next few months?
So colour wise, we have seen colour evolve from dip dye to ombre to the balance of light and dark with balayage – so it’s the balance of what’s cool is what is changing. I would say that dark roots going to lighter is still definitely on trend, it’s just the balance of light and dark that’s changing.
Now, the colours will be a bit richer, slightly darker, and that’s the fun part of these trends. They are also low maintenance, which is why they are so popular.
For cuts, we went from the lob to midis and in the last six months we have done a lot of square, blunt bobs; it’s a strong style, but it’s really nice.
Another thing that’s really nice is that they are big on creating friendships at Love Hair. If you refer a friend you get 10% off and so does your friend – we think the earth would like that.
Love Hair, 1F, 99F Wellington Street, Central, Hong Kong, p. 2458 0190, 中環威靈頓街99號F 1樓
