Clairol Under Fire for Misleading Christina Hendricks Ad
The misleading Clairol advertisement featuring Christina Hendricks. (Photo: Procter & Gamble)
It should have been a nice and easy hair-coloring commercial, but a new Clairol ad featuring Mad Men actress Christina Hendricks has been banned in the U.K. for being misleading. The commercial for Clairol’s Nice ’N Easy starts with Hendricks sporting her signature red locks and ends with her being a blonde. “I’ve been the same shade of red for many years,” she says to the camera. “I think it’s time to change it up. Goodbye, red. Hello, golden blonde.” After the commercial aired, the British Advertising Standards Agency received complaints from two hair care professionals claiming that her hair color could not have been achieved using only Nice ’N Easy. Hendricks is a natural blonde who has been dyeing her hair red since the age of 10.
Hendricks as a child, with her natural blonde hair color. (Photo: Christina Hendricks)
According to the Daily Mail, Procter & Gamble said that Hendricks’s hair was first dyed blonde, and then red, in order to keep her hair transformation under wraps. However, the commercial shows the transformation happening in the reverse order. P&G also asked the actress to avoid dyeing her hair for eight weeks prior to the shoot. Procter & Gamble said it did not intend to mislead consumers and that “the decision to dye Miss Hendricks’s locks blonde then red was for logistical reasons — as well as to protect the health of her hair.” P&G said the colorist on the shoot confirmed he had solely used the Nice ’N Easy product and used it according to the instructions. The company also provided a statement from Hendricks stating that no postproduction was carried out on her hair color. After looking into the complaints, the Advertising Standards Agency felt the ad “misleadingly exaggerated the capability of the product” and banned the ad from airing on television.
In a statement, the ASA concluded, “Because the visual claim had not been substantiated, and given that the sequence in which the model’s hair was colored leading up to the TV shoots did not match the depiction in the ad, we concluded that it misleadingly exaggerated the capability of the product.” In a statement to Yahoo Beauty, Clairol responded, “We are disappointed in the outcome as we are confident that the color change we depicted in the TV copy (from Nice ’N Easy shade 6R – Natural Light Auburn to Nice ’N Easy shade 8G – Natural Honey Blonde) is possible and consumer achievable using our products. However, we respect the final decision of the ASA and will be removing the TV copy from air.”
The Clairol ad in question. (Photo: Procter & Gamble)
Clairol’s U.S. website still has information about Hendricks’s hair transformation. This isn’t the first time the ASA has banned a cosmetics ad for being misleading. In 2012, it banned a Christian Dior mascara ad featuring Natalie Portman due to airbrushing, as well as L’Oréal’s antiwrinkle cream featuring Rachel Weisz. In 2011, ads for Maybelline and Lanc?me’s featuring Christy Turlington and Julia Roberts were banned for being digitally manipulated.
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