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Hailey Jennato

The Price of Beauty

Luscious locks. Beautiful bangs. Cascading curls. Advertisements for hair care products

typically follow the same theme: a gorgeous model ruffles around her silky, voluminous hair

while a narrator describes the miraculous benefits of using a specific shampoo or conditioner.

Despite skepticism on their effectiveness, many consumers buy a myriad of hair care products

with the hope of looking like the models from the commercials, because the cosmetics industry

constantly reminds the everyday woman of her failure to meet society’s strict expectations of

physical beauty. L’Oréal Paris is perhaps the most recognizable beauty brand on the market, and

its advertisements represent how beauty ads attempt to sell female empowerment at the expense

of a woman’s self-confidence. By presenting unrealistic beauty standards as desirable, and

underhandedly blaming the consumer for failing to achieve the product’s promised results,

L’Oréal Paris’s 2013 “Change the Life of Your Hair” commercial exploits women’s insecurities

to create demand for its Power Moisture shampoo.

While appearing on the surface to sell a new type of shampoo, “Change the Life of Your

Hair” actually attempts to sell feelings of confidence and sexiness. L’Oréal uses Eva Longoria, a

famous celebrity, as the spokesperson for Power Moisture to appeal to a broad spectrum of

middle-aged women, the brand’s main target audience (L’Oréal Paris). By featuring Longoria, a

model who represents glitz, glam, and high fashion, L’Oréal immediately establishes itself as a

credible company with a worthwhile product. Longoria exudes confidence on the screen,

flaunting her gorgeous hair for most of the ad. Her full face of makeup and tight cocktail dresses

add to the persona L’Oréal is selling. The advertisement also uses straightforward dialogue.
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Longoria speaks directly to the consumer and promotes the product’s simplicity, stating

customers can now “turn dull dry hair into the soft, shiny hair” they’ve dreamed of (L’Oréal

Paris). Once again, L’Oréal appeals to the idea of pleasure and confidence to sell its shampoo.

But does L’Oréal actually intend to deliver on what its advertisement promises? Although

its website pledges to help “every woman embrace her unique beauty” and reinforce “her innate

sense of self-worth” through empowering products like Power Moisture, in reality, L’Oréal is not

actually interested in providing empowerment to its customers (“Overview”). Rather, L’Oréal

exploits the female desire for empowerment as a strategy to sell its products. As writer and editor

Jia Tolentino points out, products “presumed to...increase female power” are actually “tailored to

insecurity and desire,” with the true intention of making sales (Tolentino). The beauty standards

presented in “Change the Life of Your Hair” are incredibly desirable, yet unrealistic and

unattainable. The appearance L’Oréal sells to consumers is more stereotypical than unique, as it

is enhanced by makeup, tailored dresses, flattering camera angles, and purposeful lighting.

Consumers are led to believe they can achieve Longoria’s beauty by simply using Power

Moisture shampoo, despite the fact that Longoria never uses, holds, or interacts with the product

she is supposedly promoting (L’Oréal Paris). However, consumers no longer have to speculate

about the methods used to create the luxurious hair in commercials. Suave, a direct competitor of

L’Oréal, released an advertisement for its 2018 “Hair You Can Believe” campaign exposing how

advertisers use fake hair, extensions, and styrofoam balls to create the illusion of voluminous,

healthy hair (Yang). Therefore, it is highly unlikely the hair Longoria flounces in L’Oréal’s ad is

entirely natural, as Suave’s behind-the-scenes reveal proves hair in beauty advertisements is

often artificially enhanced. However, presenting these hair standards as normal and achievable
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ensures women will never be completely confident with their hair, thus allowing L’Oréal to

continue selling products under the guise of “empowerment.”

The strategy of presenting manufactured beauty as natural ensures women will always be

compelled to obsess over their physical image, creating an interesting paradox common

throughout the beauty industry: L’Oréal must first strike at women’s self-confidence, insinuating

that they need to improve their appearance, in order to make them feel beautiful in the future.

Although L’Oréal Paris wants consumers to feel sexy and beautiful after using Power Moisture

shampoo, the company must first convince women of their indeptitudes in order to sell their

product. John Berger explains in “Ways of Seeing” why exploiting women’s insecurities is a

successful advertising technique. He argues that how a woman “appears to others...is of crucial

importance for what is normally thought of as the success of her life” (Berger 46). Women are

conditioned to obsess over their appearance, and L’Oréal uses this to its advantage. Ultimately,

products are designed to offer a solution to a specific problem. If a woman does not have a

problem, or does not ​think​ she has a problem, with her appearance, then she has no incentive to

purchase a beauty product. L’Oréal combats this issue by clearly stating the qualities of

undesirable hair at the beginning of its advertisement. Longoria says women should desire to

change their “dull, dry...dehydrated hair,” thereby suggesting that certain hair qualities need to be

fixed (L’Oréal Paris). This acts as a springboard for L’Oréal to present Power Moisture

shampoo, a transformative solution to an artificial problem. Ultimately, the ad suggests only

women with soft, silky hair should feel beautiful and confident; any other type of hair needs to

be improved.

The “Change the Life of your Hair” advertisement implies that women have the power to

improve the appearance of their hair; however, the true power actually remains with L’Oréal.
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The ad ends with Longoria stating “you’ve got the power to change the life of your hair”

(L’Oréal Paris). While this phrase may seem like it attempts to empower women, the ad implies

hair can ​only​ be improved by using L’Oréal Power Moisture shampoo. L’Oréal supports

empowerment, as long as that empowerment comes in the form of its own products. This phrase

places the responsibility of having soft, desirable hair on women, suggesting the customer is at

fault if their hair is dull and dry before ​or​ after using Power Moisture. This allows L’Oréal to

transfer the failures of a potentially ineffective product onto the consumer. In reality, hair type is

based on a number of outside factors, and, despite what the ad suggests, obtaining healthy hair is

not as simple as using a new shampoo. However, by placing blame on customers, L’Oréal again

exploits insecurities about physical appearance, convincing women they must buy beauty

products until they meet certain standards, which, as discussed previously, are unattainable. This

continuous cycle, while frustrating for the consumer, ensures L’Oréal will always have a market

to promote and sell to.

The implications of the “Change the Life of Your Hair” ad are immense, and,

unfortunately, most beauty ads adopt similar strategies of emphasizing women’s imperfections to

sell an ineffective solution. Because women have been taught to be ashamed of their insecurities

and physical appearance, they are often manipulated by beauty companies to purchase

“empowering” products. But this empowerment is fleeting, as beauty companies like L’Oréal

Paris constantly alter the idea of beauty to create demand and satisfy their own corporate needs.

By presenting unattainable beauty standards as normal and desirable, these companies ensure

women continue to rely on their products. However, the promotion of unachievable standards

also causes many women to feel uncomfortable and unhappy in their bodies, an issue that cannot

simply be washed away with the newest shampoo.

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Works Cited

Berger, John. ​Ways of Seeing.​ London: BBC and Penguin, 1972.

L’Oréal Paris. “Change the Life of Your Hair" Commercial. 2013. ​YouTube, ​uploaded by

Shampoo & Hair Beauty Ads Collection, 12 Apr. 2020,

www.youtube.com/watch?v=gj9Mo-7WD4Y. Accessed 28 Sept. 2020.

“Overview.” ​About L’Oréal Paris​, L’Oréal Paris, 2020,

www.lorealparisusa.com/about-loreal-paris/overview.aspx.

Tolentino, Jia. “How 'Empowerment' Became Something for Women to Buy.” ​The New York

Times Magazine​, The New York Times, 12 Apr. 2016,

www.nytimes.com/2016/04/17/magazine/how-empowerment-became-something-for-wo

men-to-buy.html.

Yang, Lucy. “Suave's New Ad Exposes the Truth behind the Perfect Hair You Might See in

Shampoo Commercials - and Your Jaw Will Literally Drop Watching It.” ​Insider​,

Insider, 4 Apr. 2018, www.insider.com/suave-ad-perfect-hair-commercial-tricks-2018-4.