L’Oreal Paris is being heralded as a trailblazer in the beauty industry because they are casting a Muslim woman--who wears a hijab covering her hair--to be part of their new haircare promotion.
According to Vogue, beauty blogger Amena Khan will be one of the new faces of L’Oreal’s Elvive World of Care Campaign. In an ad shared on Instagram, Khan said, “Whether or not your hair is on display, doesn’t affect how much you care about it.”
Speaking to Vogue about the concept, Khan said, “How many brands are doing things like this? Not many. They’re literally putting a girl in a headscarf - whose hair you can’t see - in a hair campaign. Because what they’re really valuing through the campaign is the voices that we have.”
“You have to wonder – why is it presumed that women that don’t show their hair don’t look after it? The opposite of that would be that everyone that does show their hair only looks after it for the sake of showing it to others. And that mindset strips us of our autonomy and our sense of independence. Hair is a big part of self-care,” she continued.
Khan said that despite choosing to wear a hijab in public since her twenties, she enjoys styling her hair for herself.
“For me, my hair is an extension of my femininity. I love styling my hair, I love putting products in it, and I love it to smell nice. It’s an expression of who I am,” she told Vogue. “And even if that expression is for my home life and my loved ones and for me when I look in the mirror, it’s who I am. If I know my hair is greasy but I have a scarf on it, I still feel rubbish all day - even if it’s covered.”
Despite the fact that hair ads are usually meant to show off luxurious locks that make people envious, the ad has received praise from many media sources for being historic. CNN, for instance, claimed the ad is “breaking barriers and making history.”