Celebrating 20 years with his eponymous hair care brand, Murphy looks at the industry he’s in as less about following trends and more about becoming the best version of yourself.
— There are so many trends and micro-trends happening at the same time, We’ve noticed that the seasons have started to blend together more. You just pick the pieces that suit you. It’s similar with hair: you pick the best style that suits your hair and stick with it. These ’tribes’ are people with the same interests staying together and having similar looks. Tribes versus trends means it’s more about belonging to your group rather than being trendy. It’s a more relaxed approach, focusing on individuality and personalization rather than slavishly following trends.
Murphy anticipates new roles for the hairdressers in the future.
— It’s not about just doing hair anymore. We’re looking at hyper-personalisation, moving away from trends as such. We now see some hairdressers taking different career paths by using social media, technology, and things that weren’t available to them before.
”Human creation is becoming the new luxury”
How would you describe this transformation for the hairdresser?
— If you think of how AI has changed the world, what has happened is that now, human creation is becoming the ’new luxury’. A haircut these days is the last handcrafted experience — a robot is never going to be able to take that job. AI will change our industry, though. Just think of how social media has drastically changed it, and how TikTok has turbocharged it. This has created great messaging opportunities, contacts, and opportunities for many hairdressers. Now, they can craft their clientele by just doing what they love, taking a photo and streaming, and seeing people get attracted to the work that they do.
— It used to be that you would go to the hair salon, bring in a photo, and expect your hairdresser to do that. Now, you seek the person out through social media on the hair that you like. Now, we want to guide them, the hairdressers, in new thinking in the digital world and social media. To find a path and try out new things instead of just talking about products and hair colour.
Yes, how can you help hairdressers and salons more in their digital transformation?
— By creating classes where we show them how to present their own work. But to be honest, I think our industry is already doing a great job with digital transformation. As I said, hairdressers now are really good at showcasing their work on social media, which allows consumers to find the styles they want by simply searching digital platforms with keywords to find looks that suit them in their area. The beauty of social media is that it has become a great equaliser — everyone is on a level playing field. Anyone can showcase their work, and the everyday person often has authenticity on their side, which can sometimes challenge bigger brands in the digital space.
You’re celebrating 20 years. If we were about to see each other 20 years from now, what would you expect would have changed?
— Well, I’d be 82 for one… Things are moving so fast so I don’t know if I can predict what’s going to happen, but science is going to become a lot more important than it has been in the past. I’ve always been an advocate for natural products, but I find that right now, I can’t go any further with them. I need science to pop in and change nature to make it worthwhile.
— I can make great natural products. I can go organic. I can do them really ’raw.’ But I can’t change the hair with natural products as fast as I can change it with science, so it’s a mixture of science and nature, working with biotech, that will see me through.
What science are you curious about now?
— We’ve had dry shampoo for quite a long time. It’s clunky, it’s got the residue. There are now new ingredients that can wash your hair without wetting it — and everything completely disappears. I found that quite fascinating, to just spray instead of having to jump in the shower. This particular molecule can clean the hair, just by spraying on it or putting your head into a capsule. But it’s a bit early, I have to add.
You haven’t been able to implement it.
— Not yet. I’d like to create a product that cleanses hair without the use of water — not a dry shampoo, but something that leaves a clean, and not a chemical, feeling. It would work like a dry conditioner that you could spray through the hair, leaving it refreshed and saving you time. As a brand, we would need to anticipate this need and work on developing such products before consumers even realise they want them. So, that when we introduce it, they’ll wonder how they ever lived without it.
When can we expect to see it?
— 20 years from now! No, but I think the molecule is beginning to exist. I have seen some products that are using something very similar. The idea that you will have to go to shampoo and conditioner to wash your hair will definitely change, even in the next 10 years. Or in the next five, actually, I think.
You’ve said that beauty is one of the few industries where digital and physical have successfully merged. Tell us more!
— It’s the only industry where the digital world has enhanced the industry, giving it a new lease of life, and, to a certain extent, turbocharged it. During my 20th anniversary show this summer, I brought Coiffeurstory on stage. They’re working with digital consultations which sounds mundane but they’re creating a new service that hasn’t been there before, more like a luxury service, Murphy shares. He continues:
— A consultation in a hair salon normally consists of 30 seconds and is a transaction more than anything else. These two French hairdressers are taking it beyond that, making it into an art form. They’ve created an online community and all of their consultations are done online. They’re very unusual people and you contact them only through Instagram. And you don’t go to a salon to meet them, you don’t go anywhere — they don’t even have a place.
— They don’t colour hair; they only cut hair. What they do is that you’ll have a €90 consultation with them that is quite extensive and lasts about 40 minutes. It sounds basic and so simple that you wonder, why didn’t anyone think of it before? You could play it down — it’s just a digital consultation — but it’s more than that. They’re making it feel like a luxury. One of them is an art director, and one is a hair cutter, and they gather pictures and references, sometimes drawing inspiration from art or old movies, and come back five days later with a personalised plan for your hair and a mood board for you to look at. I’ve seen their mood boards, and some of them are paintings. It was an interesting beauty experience that I’d never experienced before.
— Normally, when you go to the hair salon, it’s not really a consultation but more just ’in and out.’ The hairdresser whizz over, comes back, looks at your hair, and tells you to go to the basin. By that time, any ideas that you had before you came in, have been forgotten. They’re not really caring enough about you. Then, they start cutting your hair and they’ve forgotten what you’ve said because they’ve been so busy.
— Coiffeurstory, on the other hand, is taking their time. They’re not restricted by a brick-and-mortar place. They don’t have to churn it out. Instead, they can say, ’This haircut will be €180, because it’ll take this amount of time.’ Then it’s up to the person that they’ve consulted to decide if they want that or not. The customer can even take it, the mood board, to their own hairdresser instead. It’s a very unique concept.
Kevin Murphy has spent the last years working to reduce its use of plastic in the packaging. So far, the number is 25%.
— We started by reducing the plastic on a single bottle, which was successful and pointed us in the right direction to reduce plastic across the entire range. We’re now making all of the bottles in the same plastic. The caps are now made out of PET, and so are the bottles, to be able to recycle them properly. Usually, if you don’t take the lid off the shampoo bottle, it’s not gonna get recycled. Now, you don’t have to take it off, when it’s completely PET. I think we’re the first brand that can make not 100% recyclable, but the most recyclable plastic possible, thanks to the monomaterial.
— We’re not there yet — this has just been our first step. We’ve made mistakes with packaging in the past, so we’re now super careful. In some ways, I wish I wasn’t the first person to do this, because then I could have learned from someone else’s mistakes.
What other innovations can we expect from you?
— I’m very curious about Japan and their work of using natural products mixed with science, and how it’s getting more and more scientific all the time. Their know-how is much more advanced than what we are. It’s a future thing but we’re looking at making things in different areas there.