Latest news with #SchwarzkopfProfessional
Business Standard
9 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Business Standard
Schwarzkopf Professional Debuts 'Hair by Schwarzkopf Pro' with the Unveiling of this Year's Defining Hair Colour Trend: Lived-in
PRNewswire Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], June 20: Schwarzkopf Professional debuted the first edition of Hair by Schwarzkopf Pro on June 16 at St. Regis, Mumbai -- a landmark hair show celebrating global artistry, trend innovation, and creative exchange at the highest level. Backed by over a century of German hair colour expertise and salon innovation, the event marked a significant moment as Schwarzkopf Professional celebrated over 125 years of hair artistry globally and 25 years of inspiring hairdressing excellence in India. The show exemplified the brand's commitment to precision, performance, and pushing the boundaries of professional hairdressing worldwide. Hair by Schwarzkopf Pro marked a milestone collaboration between two international hair powerhouses -- Schwarzkopf Professional and Sassoon Academy came together for the first time in India to launch the 'Lived-in' Colour Trend. Hair legends Richard Ashforth, International Creative Director, and Matthew Carroll, Colour Director, at Sassoon Academy, led a precision-led segment that brought the brand's iconic artistry to the Indian stage for the very first time. Their presence marked a new moment for the Indian salon landscape -- one that merges international standards with local vision. At the heart of the show was the unveiling of Lived-in -- Schwarzkopf Professional's biggest colour trend of the year. Effortless, dimensional, and rooted in salon practicality, Lived-in is a colour trend designed for today's clients: those seeking modern tones with low-maintenance regrowth, seamless blending, and colour that evolves beautifully over time. The trend was brought to life by Schwarzkopf Professional's Hair Artist Kollektiv -- India's creative ambassadors -- through a series of striking looks themed in Lived-in Toffee, Lived-in Mocha and Lived-in Biskoff -- that redefine modern browns for every skin tone and hair texture. "The Lived-in trend is all about colour that feels personal and effortless," says Vaishakhi Haria - Meister, Hair Artist Kollektiv at Schwarzkopf Professional. "Think golden and chocolate browns that flatter Indian skin, created with easy yet impactful salon-friendly techniques for looks that grow out beautifully and suit every age." "To me, the Lived-in trend is colour that grows with you, natural, low maintenance, yet full of style," says Ryan D'Rozario - Hair Artist Kollektiv at Schwarzkopf Professional. "Soft gold highlights over a mocha base create a rich, warm dimension that flatters Indian skin and stays beautiful from day one to grow-out." "The Lived-in trend is about effortless dimension that grows out beautifully," says Deepak Jalhan - Meister, Hair Artist Kollektiv at Schwarzkopf Professional. "Inspired by the sunlit warmth of Indian landscapes. Using honeyed caramels and mochas with freehand highlights and root melts creates a seamless, low-maintenance blend that flatters deeper skin tones." At the heart of the trend is a modern brown palette, Mocha, Toffee, and Biskoff -- shades that bring softness, richness, and natural light play to Indian hair. These tones are versatile, flattering across complexions, and beautifully suited to all hair textures -- from fine to coarse, straight to wavy and curly -- making them the new go-to for colourists and clients alike. Schwarzkopf Professional's Hair Muse, Mira Kapoor, sported the trend and walked as the showstopper -- her signature Lived-in colour created by Vaishakhi Haria. Built on the trusted performance of the IGORA portfolio by Schwarzkopf Professional, the Lived-in technique draws from soft-root work, dimension-enhancing tones, and intuitive blending -- ideal for clients looking to extend their time between salon visits without compromising on style, coverage, or impact. The event was attended by renowned salons and leading salon chains, with artists, hairdressers, and salon owners coming together to witness and celebrate the grand unveiling. About Schwarzkopf Professional Since its inception as a family business by Hans Schwarzkopf in 1898, Schwarzkopf Professional holds a worldwide leading position in Beauty Care. With the customer at the center of its business model, Schwarzkopf Professional innovates, inspires, educates, connects, and supports the hairdresser, adding real value to their salon business. From cutting-edge products, such as Bonacure, IGORA, Fibre Clinix, OSiS+ and breakthrough integrated Bonding Technology, tailored salon support programs, and progressive hairdresser training from ASK Education, Schwarzkopf Professional is continuously reinventing hair in partnership with the community.
Fashion Value Chain
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Fashion Value Chain
Schwarzkopf Pro Unveils ‘Lived-In' Hair Colour Trend
Celebrating 125 years of global legacy and 25 years of innovation in India, Schwarzkopf Professional unveiled its first-ever Hair by Schwarzkopf Pro showcase at the St. Regis, Mumbai, with a transformative vision for the Indian salon industry. The event served as a convergence of global creative mastery and Indian artistic spirit, spotlighting the brand's signature new hair colour direction — Lived-In. For the first time in India, Schwarzkopf Professional partnered with the renowned Sassoon Academy, bringing international legends Richard Ashforth and Matthew Carroll to the Indian stage. Their precision artistry underscored Schwarzkopf's global standard of excellence, merging timeless techniques with modern Indian aesthetics. At the centre of the event was the debut of the Lived-In hair colour trend — a transformative approach to salon hair colour that blends contemporary tones with salon practicality. Built around a palette of Mocha, Toffee, and Biscoff, the trend reflects rich browns and golden hues that cater to Indian skin tones and diverse hair textures. Schwarzkopf's India-based Hair Artist Kollektiv brought the trend to life with stunning interpretations of the new colour language. Vaishakhi Haria, Ryan D'Rozario, and Deepak Jalhan infused their creations with warmth, dimension, and effortless wearability, utilising IGORA's trusted formulas and techniques such as root melts, freehand highlighting, and soft gradients. 'The Lived-In trend is about colour that feels effortless yet impactful. It complements Indian skin, grows out beautifully, and blends style with simplicity,' shared Vaishakhi Haria, Meister, Hair Artist Kollektiv. 'Think soft golds over mocha bases—subtle, rich, and timeless,' added Ryan D'Rozario. 'I drew inspiration from India's golden light. With caramels and intuitive blending, it's a wearable elegance for all ages,' said Deepak Jalhan. Mira Kapoor, Schwarzkopf Professional's Hair Muse, debuted the trend herself as showstopper for the evening — her Lived-In look created by Vaishakhi Haria, highlighting the versatility and understated glamour of this colour movement. With its roots in salon-friendly artistry and intuitive maintenance, Lived-In colour is poised to become the new staple in Indian salons. As Schwarzkopf continues to pioneer trends with real-life wearability, Hair by Schwarzkopf Pro becomes more than a show — it's a defining moment in the evolution of Indian hairstyling.
Fashion Network
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Fashion Network
Schwarzkopf Professional holds Mumbai showcase with Mira Kapoor
Schwarzkopf Professional hosted a runway show for hair at the St Regis in Mumbai to debut its 'Hair by Schwarzkopf Pro' event in India and launch its new colour trend 'Lived-in' with Bollywood celebrity Mira Kapoor. The event was designed to mark a milestone celebration of the brand's 125-year global legacy and 25 years in India, Schwarzkopf Professional announced in a press release. The showcase brought together global artistry, trend innovation, and technical precision, reinforcing Schwarzkopf Professional's commitment to elevating global salon standards. The highlight of the event was the India launch of Lived-In, the brand's biggest colour trend of the year. Designed for modern clients seeking low-maintenance hair colour with seamless regrowth and rich dimension, the trend was presented in three custom-toned variations, Toffee, Mocha, and Biscoff, tailored for Indian hair textures and skin tones. Schwarzkopf Professional collaborated with Sassoon Academy for the first time in India to introduce the trend, led by international educators Richard Ashforth and Matthew Carroll. Schwarzkopf Professional's Hair Artist Kollektiv brought the trend to life with intuitive blending and soft-root work using the IGORA colour range. Mira Kapoor, the brand's hair muse, walked as showstopper wearing a Lived-In look created by Vaishakhi Haria. The event was attended by salon owners, hairdressers, and industry professionals from across the country.
Yahoo
23-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Free Speech Crumbles in Europe
Imagine this scenario. The interior minister of a country that considers itself a democracy reports hundreds of citizens to the police for making critical statements about her while she is in office. Many of them are given hefty monetary fines or even prison sentences. In protest, a journalist publishes a satirical meme. It features a real photograph of the interior minister holding a sign that is digitally altered so that, apocryphally, it reads: 'I hate freedom of speech.' As if to prove the point, the interior minister reports the journalist to the police. He is duly prosecuted and, after a brief trial, given a seven-month prison sentence. Would you say that this nation has a problem with free speech? If you do, then you should be very concerned about what has happened in Europe over the last few years. For, as you may have suspected, this scenario is not fictional; rather, it depicts the true facts of a recent German court case—one that is far less of an outlier than most otherwise well-informed observers recognize. The politician in question is Nancy Faeser. Over her three-plus years in office, the Social Democrat has reported multiple citizens to the police for criticisms they made of her on social media. She is hardly alone in having done so; other members of Chancellor Olaf Scholz's outgoing coalition government have been even more aggressive in targeting critics. Robert Habeck, a leader of the Green Party, initiated more than 800 criminal complaints since taking up his position as Vice Chancellor in 2021. One of them was directed against a pensioner who had tweeted a parody of a ubiquitous ad for a German shampoo brand by the name of 'Schwarzkopf Professional' which featured Habeck's face—and luscious hair—under the slogan 'Schwachkopf Professional' (roughly: professional idiot). The police duly raided the pensioner's home at 6 a.m., confiscating his iPad and starting criminal proceedings against him. It may seem as though this is nothing new. By American standards, Germany's limits on free speech have long been shockingly restrictive. As a family friend experienced some two decades ago, even a comparatively innocuous interpersonal altercation can lead to a lengthy court trial. One day, this piano professor at the local music university, a mild-mannered lady who was then already well into her 60s, was cycling to work. When a car cut her off in a way she considered dangerous, she flipped the driver off. A few hours later, the driver was standing at the gate of her university, and demanded that she identify herself. In the end, a court found her guilty of the crime of 'insult,' and required her to pay the equivalent of thousands of dollars in fines. Over the past decade, a raft of new laws has further extended restrictions on free speech. First, a law named—as though to confirm all stereotypes about the German language being overly cumbersome and bureaucratic—the Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz (Network Enforcement Act) required major social media platforms to act swiftly to delete presumptively illegal content ranging from hate speech to personal insults. The law imposed such steep fines on social media networks such as Twitter and Facebook that they needed to err on the side of censoring any content that might conceivably be illegal in order to keep operating in the country. When Russian President Vladimir Putin sought to strengthen his ability to marginalize the political opposition in Russia, he cleverly translated key passages of the German law into Russian, deflecting criticisms of his crackdown on free speech by pointing out that he was merely emulating Western democracies. Then, Germany's outgoing center-left government created a new provision which gives special speech protection to politicians. According to Paragraph 188 of the German Criminal Code, anyone who makes a critical remark about a political figure that they cannot substantiate is subject to enhanced penalties, including a prison term of up to three years. It is this law that major German politicians now routinely invoke to ask the police to prosecute citizens, from good-faith critics to run-of-the-mill social media trolls—like the man who posted that innocuous parody of a shampoo ad featuring Habeck. Germany's past has given it an especially ambivalent relationship toward free speech. In the wake of the horrors of World War II, the country reinvented itself as a 'militant democracy,' one that puts special emphasis on using the law to combat extremist forces. As a result, it was one of the first European democracies to explicitly outlaw a range of radical sentiments, from hate speech to the denial of the Holocaust. But today, Germany is no longer an outlier within Europe; on the contrary, even countries that have long prided themselves on their liberal traditions have followed the country's lead, making it astonishingly easy for the police to arrest citizens who say things that shock or offend. In late January, six police officers approached the front door of Maxie Allen and Rosalind Levine in Hertfordshire, an area north of London. After briefly speaking to the middle-aged couple, the police took them into custody, where they would go on to be incarcerated for eight hours under suspicion of having sent 'malicious communications.' (The police later found they had 'insufficient evidence' to take further action against the couple.) The reasons why Allen and Levine were arrested are astonishing. Unhappy about their daughter's primary school, they had raised questions about the process of choosing a new headmaster in a parents' WhatsApp group. When the school's leadership got wind of the criticisms, it referred Allen and Levine to the local police. Britain does not have an equivalent of the United States' First Amendment. But protections for free speech have long played an important role in common law, and Britain has always taken pride in its reputation for free thinking. When I first visited London as a teenager, I made a pilgrimage to Speaker's Corner—a part of Hyde Park that has been famous for allowing the public expression of unpopular views since the middle of the 19th century—and listened in fascination as a parade of cranks, preachers, and extremists made their case to bemused onlookers. But the times in which Britons could confidently say whatever they wanted without the fear of landing in jail are now long gone. It began, as in many European countries, with legislation regulating hate speech. In 1986, the country introduced a prohibition on 'publishing threatening or abusive material intending to stir up racial hatred,' which imposed very harsh prison sentences but at least contained a comparatively clear definition of what was being banned. This changed in 2003, with the adoption of the Communications Act. According to Section 127, anybody sending a message over a public communications network can now be imprisoned for up to six months if it is found to be 'grossly offensive'; if it is 'indecent, obscene, or menacing'; or if it is 'false, and sent to cause annoyance or distress.' As this broad language suggests, these crimes are extremely poorly defined. What counts as 'indecent' or 'grossly offensive' is very much in the eye of the beholder. To make things worse, British citizens can be prosecuted for such speech in magistrate's courts, which typically deal with minor matters like public order offenses or drunk and disorderly conduct; in practice, the question of what is illegal is therefore settled by poorly trained police officers and lay judges without any formal legal education. It is now possible—and indeed quite common—for Britons to be jailed for up to six months for tweeting a stupid joke without ever coming into contact with a judge who has a law degree or being able to exercise the right to a trial by jury. (When defendants are threatened with even longer prison sentences under the 1986 law, they do at least retain some of those basic procedural rights.) As a result of these broad prohibitions and the wide latitude in enforcing them, Britain has quickly become one of the continent's leaders in prosecuting people for speech, with the outcome often resulting in prison sentences. As the Times of London recently reported, 'officers from 37 police forces made 12,183 arrests in 2023.' This means that, on average, more than 33 people in the United Kingdom were arrested every day for what they had said on the internet. Many of these people, like Allen and Levine, have done nothing wrong. In one particularly egregious case, for example, a 21-year-old woman was criminally prosecuted for referring to a soccer player by the N-word on social media—even though she herself is black. In another case, a Scottish grandmother fell afoul of draconian laws establishing effective no-speech zones around abortion clinics; she silently held up a sign reading, 'Coercion is a crime, here to talk, only if you want,' and four police officers promptly arrested her. In yet another case, a severely autistic 16-year-old girl was manhandled and arrested by police in West Yorkshire on suspicion of a homophobic hate crime for saying that an officer resembled her 'lesbian nana.' (The girl's beloved grandmother is lesbian.) In other cases, people who have acted in ways that are indubitably morally noxious have faced penalties that are shockingly disproportionate to the offense. In the highly emotional hours after Axel Rudakubana killed three young girls at a Taylor Swift dance party in Southport in July 2024, for example, the wife of a local councillor for the Conservative Party posted a tweet that is clearly racist: 'Mass deportation now, set fire to all the fucking hotels full of the bastards for all I care. … If that makes me racist, so be it.' Under America's First Amendment standard, this tweet would almost certainly count as protected speech. But under the more draconian and less clearly defined British standards, an ill-conceived tweet can quickly turn into a lengthy prison sentence. Within three months of sending her tweet, Connolly was sentenced to 31 months in prison. European limits on free speech are likely to become even more far-reaching in the near future. In the agreement setting out the policies of the incoming government, the coalition which is set to govern Germany for the next four years wrote that 'the knowing dissemination of false claims is not covered by free speech,' an incredibly broad standard that could potentially criminalize anything from run-of-the-mill lies to controversial statements the government arbitrarily deems to be 'misinformation.' In Poland, a law passed by parliament would significantly broaden 'hate speech' protections to include such categories as age or disability. Increasingly, the European Union itself is even mandating that member states censor their citizens. Germany's Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz served as the model for a similar law at the European level; to operate anywhere in the European Union, social networks must now rapidly delete posts that could potentially violate one of the 27 sets of rules on hate speech enacted by the bloc's members. Meanwhile, the European Commission has recently proposed including 'hate speech' in a small list of 'EU crimes'; while the EU does not itself prosecute violations of such rules, it requires each of its member states to make provisions for doing so. Europe's embrace of stringent and ill-defined limits on free expression is both a moral and a practical mistake. Some disagreement about where to draw the line between speech that is merely morally noxious and speech that is criminal may—even in debates premised on the validity of the First Amendment—be inevitable. And while I personally believe in the universal value of America's First Amendment, it is reasonable for other countries with different political traditions to adopt a somewhat more expansive notion of what constitutes incitement to violence or when false statements cross the line into outright slander. But in practice, European restrictions on free speech have long since gone far beyond the realm of reasonable disagreement: They are now so extensive that all of the classic arguments against state censorship fully apply to them. Philosophers have traditionally made the case for free speech by emphasizing the positive things that this practice facilitates. As John Stuart Mill beautifully put it, restrictions on free speech always presume the infallibility of the censor; and yet, the fate of some of humanity's most distinguished thinkers, from Socrates to Galileo Galilei, attests to the fact that what seems ineluctably true today may turn out to be evidently false tomorrow. There is, as Mill noted, even a danger in censoring speech that really does turn out to be wrong; if we are incapable of defending democratic institutions against their harshest critics, we will hold onto them as dead dogmas rather than living truths—and that will, the moment such prohibitions are lifted, make the work of their adversaries all the easier. Both of these insights have proven to be highly pertinent to our own era. It's tempting to believe that we are smarter and more tolerant than the censors who persecuted Socrates and Galileo. But over the course of my own lifetime, gays and lesbians were routinely fired from their jobs for publicly acknowledging their sexual orientation, and major social media platforms, including Facebook and YouTube, banned posts suggesting that COVID may have originated in a laboratory. Similarly, Mill's point about 'living truths' seemed a little abstract to me when I first read it as an undergraduate. But the ease with which people from across the political spectrum who have long paid lip service to liberal democracy have been willing to abandon its basic values in recent years shows just how prescient his worry about the weakness of 'dead dogmas' has turned out to be. Even so, I understand why the positive aspects of free speech can seem like a remote concern at a time when democracy is under serious threat in many countries. Doesn't the threat of misinformation outweigh the benefits of free speech? And isn't it more important to preserve democracy than to care about the niceties of free speech? That's why (as I argued in my latest book, The Identity Trap) the strongest arguments for free speech don't focus on the good things that happen when we uphold the practice; they focus on the terrible things that happen when we don't. Sadly, the ways in which restrictions on free speech in Europe have weakened, rather than strengthened, democracy perfectly illustrate this point. The supposed goal of hate speech laws is to protect the vulnerable from offense or victimization. But virtually by definition, those who get to make decisions about what kind of speech is permitted, and what kind of speech is verboten, enjoy a lot of power—whether they be judges and politicians or whether they be senior executives in tech companies. And so it is hardly surprising that the people who have been prosecuted for speaking their mind, from a young black student in Britain to an old pensioner in a small-town Germany, seem relatively powerless. Another negative effect of limits on free speech is that they greatly increase the stakes of holding power. A key promise of democracy is that you can make a case for your views even if you lose an election, incentivizing you to accept the rules of the game in the hope of winning the next time around. But if those in power can criminalize the speech of those who are out of power, the willingness to accept the rules of the game is likely to decrease significantly. This is why restrictions on speech that have the putative purpose of supporting political moderation often end up fanning the flames of extremism—and the seemingly ineluctable rise in restrictions on free speech has coincided with the seemingly ineluctable rise of the far right. Europe's far-reaching restrictions on free speech have resulted in many serious miscarriages of justice. They have a significant chilling effect on the ability to engage in robust political speech, which must include the freedom to express unpopular opinions and to satirize—whether in good taste or bad—the most powerful people in society. Far from helping European countries to contain the extremists now knocking on the doors of power, that chilling of speech has likely turned them into martyrs and grown their public support. Europe has a serious free speech problem. To live up to the most basic values of the democracies that are now under threat, the continent needs a radical change of course. Instead of taking ever more measures to punish their citizens for what they say, it's time for countries from Germany to Britain to reverse course—and restore true freedom of speech.
