AP National Writer, New York
“Hair is really funny stuff,” John Frieda is saying as he tosses my locks around in his hands, contemplating their state. “Most people don’t like their hair.”
But at least I don’t have frizzy hair, I’m thinking, as Frieda examines my tresses. I’m thinking about frizz because this trim, fiftyish man with chiseled good looks and a full head of salt-and-pepper hair—think Ralph Lauren, only British and a decade younger—is famous for being the man who tamed that pesky plague.
Which is one reason we find Frieda, who sold his company to Japan’s Kao Corporation in 2002 but remains heavily involved on the creative side, sitting on this recent summer day in a mobile Frieda hair salon, fashioned from an 18-wheel truck. Fitted with everything from sinks to leather couches, it’s parked for a couple of days at Manhattan’s South Street Seaport before promotional stops in cities across the country, ending in Los Angeles in August.
The customers, some walk-ins and others who’ve booked online, are getting free consultations, shampoos and blow-outs from Frieda stylists–and of course samples of the latest line of Frieda products.
Some of these women have frizzy hair. But that’s not my problem, I smile to myself, as Frieda’s quick analysis continues.
“There’s some frizz down here,” he says briskly. Darn! Really?
With no ad budget, he went on a British TV show to demonstrate a thickening lotion, applying it to a model’s roots and then blow-drying. The results had viewers flooding the phone lines. “The presenter had to ask people to please stop calling,” he says. “Boots (the drugstore chain) asked for 1.2 million bottles. And I was running the company from my basement.”
On shelves, the lotion cost the equivalent of six or seven dollars, at least twice what other hair products were selling for. What Frieda learned was that women were willing to pay more money for their hair care, especially when it came to frizz.
All images courtesy of the Fashion Spot forums.
