Remember the video Dove put out last year, showing the transformation of a real-life model, with blemishes, etc, into the kind of perfect image you see in advertising? Well, they’ve done it again, this time with hair.

The video (below) shows the work, time and money that goes into ‘Hollywood hair’.

Like the rest of Dove’s so-called Campaign for Real Beauty, it has a bit of a flaw. It’s still trying to sell you stuff. The website is full of coiffure-affirming stories of women who love their own hair, rather than aspiring to the hair of, say, Paris Hilton. But they all have one thing in common: they’ve used Dove’s products. The stories are even organised by product.

Judy W from Chicago goes on about her mother’s lovely hair, and how she’s learned to love her own locks. She’s a “volume seeker”.

As Anastasia Goodstein from Ypulse points out, there are much tougher hair-related issues, which Dove has shied away from, in favour of shilling its products:

I guess when I think about girls’ and women’s issues with our hair, they tend to go a little deeper. Brunettes want to be blond. Why? African American or Jewish girls with super curly hair want to straighten it. Why? Some women are afraid to cut their hair short because it makes them look like boys. To me, these are much more interesting questions and issues than knowing how much goes into an Emmy hairdo.

Posted by Jess McCabe on 27 August 2007, at 10:07 AM