There might be a large distance between the two countries, but when it comes to hair colour and style trends – are England and Australia really worlds apart?
After organising the launch of the John Frieda Precision Foam Colour in England two years ago, brand manager Claire Peake packed her bags and moved halfway across the world to look after the product launch in Australia.
With a wide knowledge of hair across the two countries, we sat down to talk to Peake about the differences in hair wants and needs between Australia and England.
There’s definitely differences between the UK and Australia in terms of hair colours. In the UK, red was a major trend about two years ago when we first launched the foam colour. That’s now fading away and going very much into the block colours in the UK.”
In Australia, I find the red trend isn’t quite there yet, but I think it’s coming. It’s on its way. There’s a lot more blondes in Australia. That really surfy, beachy blonde look.”
It’s not just hair colour that Peake has noticed differences. Peake says Australia is more about having lots of long, healthy, wavy gorgeous hair, whereas the UK focuses more on having styled, cropped hair with popular style choices including blunt bobs and lots of texture.
With strong differences between the two markets, hair brands looking to expand to Britain need to be adaptable in their launch plans. It’s really about understanding the different needs of different markets. You can have a global brand, but you need to adapt and tailor it to be relevant to the individual market that you’re launching into.”
For John Frieda, this meant having different launch plans, timings and product ranges for the US, UK and Australia. The range of shades for Australia are different for the UK based on the hair colours, trends and what women are asking for in salons and in shops in the UK versus Australia.”
