With nearly 90,000 Instagram followers to their name, Sydney and Wollongong based salon Hair & Harlow is doing something right to land on newsfeeds Australia-wide and the secret may lie in their inspirational colour. With Haircare Australia’s Spanish brand Lakmé supporting them and an insatiable ambition and skill in the colour sphere, the salon has mastered viral hairdressing in 2019, #nofilter necessary.
The duo behind the impressive Hair and Harlow brand, Amy Zikic and Justine Snelgrove, who grew their business from two salons to two locations and clients who travel for miles to see them, have individually been working with Lakmé for over a decade. With instinctive business skills and talent for colour, they knew to incorporate a brand and supplier they could trust into their salon when they started almost five years ago.
“Lakmé 100 per cent pushes us creatively, we have a great social media following, we pride ourselves on taking beautiful photos and beautiful photos come from beautiful finishes and beautiful colour work,” Amy said. “We really think we’re a package at Hair & Harlow and Lakmé helps us stay creative and do those things we can do as a brand. Our salon team with Lakmé is a great creative duo, we wouldn’t use anything else because we don’t think we could get the job done.”
The Lakmé colours have won global acclaim for not only their true to tone hues – and the Instagram shots this produces – but also for their commitment to sustainable, cruelty-free and eco-friendly beauty, with a diverse portfolio of grey coverage, intense fashion shades, clean blondes, toning and emphatic application removal.
“We’ve worked with the brand for quite a few years now and our favourite thing is that it’s so true to colour, it’s so long lasting and it’s such a beautiful colour in terms of application and timing,” Justine confirmed. “It’s a wonderful colour to work with and paint with, the creaminess and consistency of the colour has been a big part of creating our beautiful colour melts and colour blends.”
Lakmé is built on the four pillars of professionalism, passion, inspiration and training, something the Hair & Harlow girls have experienced practically, with a Haircare Australia team that goes above and beyond to support their needs, product that harnesses their creative impulses and education opportunities that have seen them tour nationally and overseas.
“We’ve had the most incredible 2018, we launched our Australian Hair & Harlow education tour with Haircare Australia at the end of 2017 and the following year sold out shows in every state in Australia. We event went to New Zealand,” Amy said. “Haircare Australia gave us an amazing platform to take our work to salons across the country. Our audiences know how much we support the brand, we give our heart and soul to it.”
“We are again travelling across Australia and New Zealand in 2019 for our Hair & Harlow Lakmé education tour,” she continued. “We’ll also be flying to Barcelona with Haircare Australia to be guest artists at the Haircare Study Tour where we’ll also visit the Lakmé headquarters where the colour is made.”
“It’s an amazing brand and it sparks a lot of interest and a lot of people like to see how we use the colours. They love to hear what we have to say about the formulas and the colours,” Justine agreed.
“Our clients love it because it’s long-lasting and when you talk about colour, for me it comes down to the knowledge behind the brand and understanding how to apply it, I think the way Lakmé colour moves in the hair is so beautiful,” Amy said. “We were recognised years ago for our creative balayage, we were one of the first salons to launch and educate the look, when you do freehand colour work the colour can move and drip, Lakmé allows us to mesh the colours together perfectly, so there’s no bleeding or lines.”
“The colour isn’t so watery that it moves on the hair and it’s the perfect consistency to be able to paint and blend tones, to create this free look,” she continued. “Hair at the moment is lived-in and natural. If we didn’t use Lakmé we wouldn’t be able to create the looks that we do.”
The brand is also committed to prioritising the health and well-being of the hair, while also addressing every facet of the industry with innovative marketing and educational development. Haircare Australia suitably distributes the brand with its family-focused ethos and intense commitment to the Australian professional hair industry.
“The support from Haircare Australia is amazing, with everything under the one banner, we couldn’t do it without them,” Amy said. “We don’t see them as a supplier, we see them as a family basis and a community to help us grow and become successful educators.”
“They’re a phenomenal company to work with and be in partnership with,” Justine agreed. “The support they give us is amazing.”
Supporting the Hair & Harlow blonde work is particularly important, with blondes providing a significant bulk of their viral Instagram-savvy looks and hashtags. Amy and Justine favour the brand’s gloss tones, and pairing warm and cool tones together for balanced beige, feeding into the trending hype of natural hues and inspirational blondes online and in salon. The colours allow them to be creative and satisfy clients simultaneously.
“We’re big fans of intermixing, we’re not scared to mix a warm with a cool tone or a copper with a gold and things like that, it’s amazing what you can do by mixing the colours together,” Amy said. “We’re a real fan of being creative with brands. The Lakmé colour is true to its tone and it does what it should do rather than having to go back a level.” Justine lauds the hues for being “very powerful, quick working and long lasting.”
With business savvy, educational know-how, creative and technical skills and the product and company support to back up these talents, it’s no wonder the Hair & Harlow star continues to rise. With perfect partners and limitless ambition, we’re not setting a limit on their success.
Discover the world of colour possibilities @lakmecolour @haircareaust
For more information visit www.haircareaust.com