Hair & Care's Impact.
In today's society, it is crucial for the hair industry to embrace accessibility and inclusivity to ensure that everyone has equal opportunities to engage and benefit from its offerings, especially within the beauty industry.
However, blind and low vision people often face significant challenges when it comes to accessing and participating in any beauty-related activities, with a staggering 98% of low vision women feeling excluded from the industry.
This is where our organisation plays a vital role:
Hair & Care recognises that hair care is not just about aesthetics but also a means of self-expression and self-care.
How are we making the hair industry more accessible?
By bridging the gap between the beauty industry and the low vision community, Hair & Care paves the way for a more accessible hair landscape, through open conversation with industry professionals, workshops, special events, educational webinars and more.
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Our three founding missions aim to achieve an open and honest conversation of accessibility.
1. Upskill Hair Professionals and Hairstylists Through Education.
Hair & Care collaborates with a network of volunteer hairstylists working alongside Anna Cofone and the Hair & Care team during our workshops. Each volunteer has received specialised training enhancing their ability to assist our attendees effectively, with care, specifically as to the use of guidance, vocabulary and safeguarding.
By participating as volunteers in our workshops, our hairstylists contribute not only to supporting the blind and low vision community, but also to cultivating a more empathetic hair industry. They gain valuable experience preparing them to address diverse challenges they may encounter in their day-to-day work with individuals with special needs.
2. Create a Lasting Impact Within the Fashion and Beauty Industry.
Hair & Care is actively challenging brands to build accessibility into their pipelines. Our ongoing commitment includes gathering valuable feedback from our service users to improve the accessibility of services, products and tools. In our efforts, we engage with hair brands and seek partnerships to effectively raise awareness and promote accessibility.
At the beginning of 2024 Hair & Care launched their Making Fashion Accessible initiative, introducing designers to ways of making their fashion shows accessible to blind and low vision people.
3. Support and Empower Blind and Low Vision Women and Young Girls How to Understand and Care for Their Hair.
We run monthly workshops to introduce blind and low vision women and young girls to the importance of caring for their hair, and how that impacts their self-care.
This space allows our participants to grow in personal confidence, develop their skills and create a strong network with other women in the community.
Martyn Wady
International Business Development
Manager, Denman International
"Denman feels so privileged to support Hair & Care. Anna has created something truly special by bringing both compassion and practical skill to the blind community in a way that makes a measurable difference to their wellbeing.
Denman provides hair tools and where possible, hairdressing services to Anna’s workshops. We’ve seen first-hand the positive impact teaching hair care, styling and tool use makes on those living with low vision. Haircare truly is self-care and Anna empowers her workshop attendees to take pleasure and pride in their hair and that’s priceless!"
What do industry experts
say about Hair & Care?
Sinéade O'Dwyer
Fashion Designer
"Working with Hair & Care has been an amazing opportunity to learn about accessibility for blind and low vision people and how to bring our brand to that community. It has been a very unique experience as fashion designers don't get training on how to share our worlds beyond the sighted community, but as creatives we are uniquely suited to think about ideas that bring the sensations together to create a multi sensory world.”
Nick Schofield
CEO of VICTA
“VICTA young adults love the Hair & Care workshops. They are truly transformative. Not only do our young people learn from the team of professional hairstylists but also Anna’s experience and benefit from her understanding of the challenges of living with sight loss."
Hair & Care’s sessions are brilliantly structured to create safe, fun, non-judgemental spaces that are inclusive, engaging, and instructive. A single session is enough to deliver personal growth, witnessed by increased confidence, self-esteem and a more positive body image. Everyone leaves a workshop feeling empowered.”