The influence of AI in the hair industry
I don’t know about you, but I am the kind of hairstylist who never gets their own hair done. I don’t even attempt to do it myself beyond the occasional bang trim. I am lucky enough to have held on to a lot of my natural blonde and so I prefer to keep my color low maintenance. As much as I love the feeling of fresh highlights and a nice scalp massage, I despise the idea of having to sit in the salon chair for hours every 6-8 weeks, and I hate seeing a line of demarcation as my color grows out. I’m sure this is a lot of the reason why I have chosen to specialize in lower maintenance hair colors for my own salon clients, but about every 6-8 months I start feeling ready to be a little bit brighter again and that time finally came!
I set up an appointment with a coworker of mine and started scrolling Pinterest for hair inspo as I always do. But this time around I noticed something different in the sea of pictures… AI images.
These AI generated images have been popping up everywhere the past several months, from hilarious pictures of the Pope in a puffer jacket, to seeing AI yearbook style self portraits designed to look like different decades all over social media.
We could spend forever debating both the fascinating advantages AI technology can provide, as well as the serious harm it has the ability to create, but today my goal is to focus on specifically how AI is influencing the hair industry.
Like most people, I was first introduced to the capabilities of AI through chatGPT. I can’t lie, I had fun playing around with a language model to ask questions in a more conversational way.
Whether you like AI or not, the reality is this technology isn’t going anywhere. And although there are still big limitations in its capabilities, the technology is only going to improve and be adapted in ways that make it inescapable in our daily lives.
You might not even realize how much AI is being used all around you. I personally use an AI software to help edit this very podcast by removing long pauses and filler words, and generating short clips to post on social media without having to spend as long trying to pick out the short highlights.
I’ve noticed a lot of conversations in the beauty industry around using AI to generate captions for Instagram content, cancelation policies, replies to client messages when you’re in a sticky situation. Although there is some controversy in how heavily we use AI language models because of the way it typically it spits out robotic text that doesn’t sound natural no matter how well you attempt to train it to sound like you and it doesn’t always have the most accurate information, I expect us to see more and more of it utilized in our careers as stylists.
In my own perspective, I don’t think AI is a bad tool to use, but I am cautious of how obvious its use can be. Not everyone currently has as natural of an eye for noticing it, but even though it’s safe to predict the technology will get better, it’s also safe to assume that the average person will get better at noticing it with more exposure to this technology in our daily lives. If your clients can tell you’re using AI to write your captions, they are going to instantly stop reading them because their goal online it to connect with a real person, not some robot. And if you’re emailing a client back using AI and they can pick up on it, they are probably going to be offended by the cookie cutter response or loose interest in supporting your business depending on which situation you’re using it in. I’m not saying it can’t work, but I recommend utilizing it more as inspiration than I do for full on copy and paste usage.
Speaking of inspiration… let’s discuss the next level of AI technology, images. The first time I really saw this being used in any kind of professional setting was with headshots. There were a lot of free or even cheap photo generators that could create headshots that look like picture perfect versions of yourself, and everyone on Facebook was excited to have a nice looking picture without having to do fix their hair, do their makeup, put together an outfit, find good lighting, and hire a photographer. I get it, professional photos aren’t cheap and they take a lot of time and effort. But as fascinating as it was seeing what this program would create, I think a lot of people have forgotten just how dystopian these imagine feel. When we are looking at these perfect images of ourselves, we are noticing how smooth our skin looks, how much volume we have in our hair, and how the whites of our eyes pop… but from the outside looking in everyone else is getting an uncanny valley vibe that triggers a sense of distrust.
Recently I was researching a new extension method, and I came across a brand I hadn’t heard of offering an online certification. As with anything, I do a ton of research before I’m willing to invest my hard earned money so I spent some time scrolling through all of the different pages on their website. I was genuinely considering purchasing their certification class until I clicked on a page that listed out their entire education team. Every single one of these hairstylists representing their brand except for one had an AI generated headshot on this website. I have no idea if the brand generated these images or if the hairstylists submitted them themselves, but either way I instantly closed out the web page and decided that was a big enough red flag for me to lose all trust in that companies training. Although these images are not directly correlated to the education they would be providing, it did make me question the quality of the certifiation they offer.
In my opinion, using AI headshots is the equivalent of using a Snapchat filter as your profile picture. It’s unprofessional and something we need to reserve for entertainment instead of inside our businesses. I know that might be a hot take, but it’s my honest opinion and perspective as someone who can instantly spot when AI is being used.
Slowly these images are becoming more and more inescapable. In a world where we idolize celebrities and models that spend thousands on plastic surgery, unattainable beauty standards are something we will unfortunately be battling for the rest of our lives. I can only imagine the challenges makeup artists will face when clients come in with an AI generated photo expecting to look just like the picture when in reality skin will always have some texture and movement in real life. And on the hair side of the industry we are receiving pictures with high contrast color transitions, perfectly tousled layers on the perfectly full head of hair, and stands styled so perfectly it almost looks painted.
But how do we manage our clients expectations knowing that these images are here to stay? Ironically this isn’t as new of a challenge as we may think.
In the early days of Instagram we loved a good filter (take me back to the days of 2013), no one posted a picture online without at least one filter if not many layered on each square photo. Slowly these heavily edited images were being brought into salons with goals of achieving the whites blondes on jet black hair, and icy lavender and silver tones that we all knew were designed to fade. As stylists expressed their frustrations we started having more conversations about what is achieve with hair, both when it comes to our clients expectations as well as how we could improve our techniques as stylist behind the chair. We all became better at recognizing when an image was brightened or contrasted, and we started understanding that hair color reflects light differently in every setting while having more nuanced conversations about lighting and photography with our clients.
In the same ways we managed our clients expectations then, we will restart that process again with this new wave of AI images now.
I don’t think we need to be automatically frustrated when a client shows an AI generated hair inspiration picture. You could use anything from a picture of a peacock to a pumpkin spice latte as color inspiration, the key is breaking down the elements of the pictures your clients are attracted to and communicating with them how you can achieve something similar on their own hair.
Do they like the brightness of the blonde? Let them know how bright you can get their own hair with a similar placement. Do they like how the layers frame the face without the ends being thin? Explain what is achievable with their natural hair density and if the help of extensions and styling would make an impact on achieving that goal.
It’s not your clients responsibility to know what is achievable with their own hair. They don’t have a career of putting chemicals on peoples heads every day or the experience of working with different hair textures. But rather it’s our responsibility as stylists to be honest with our clients in a way that doesn’t shame them for finding a pretty picture online while also communicating our own abilities in executing their goals.
My reminder for you today is that you are capable of creating amazing hair regardlee of what inspiration is being brought in. Not everyone is holding you to an impossible standard of recreating technology in real life, and you can manage your clients expectations though honest conversations and open communication. As stylists, we have the capacity to view new technology as a frustration and burden, or we can remain optimistic in our ability to remain creative and adaptable as the world evolves around us.
I would love to know if you’ve discovered any helpful uses of AI in your own business, so head over to my IG @smalltownstylistpodcast, and send me a DM letting me know, do you love it or hate it, let’s keep the conversation going because I want to hear your perspective
- Casey Taylor
