By Jim Rhodes

I sometimes think there ought to be a special corner in the Advertising Copywriters Hall of Fame (if indeed such a thing exists) reserved for those wretched souls who labor to write labels for hair products. 

Imagine the challenge of squeezing all that breathless gushing prose into a sentence or two. I mean, how many ways can you say that this particular brand will make your hair look exquisite and as a result make you feel good about yourself?

The copywriter is presented with a dilemma. There’s only so much real estate for copy on a container label. So you can try to squeeze the most meaning out of very few words, or you indulge in a good many words to state the proposition. In the latter case, the unfortunate art director is forced to produce a label written in very tiny type, which cannot be read by people with less than perfect vision, making the whole endeavor rather pointless to my mind.

My market research—mostly consisting of examining the labels of my wife’s shampoo containers in the shower—reveals that there are certain “must” words and phrases that are sine qua non for shampoo and conditioner labels. For instance, “natural,” “herbs,” “silk,” “smooth,” “shine.” It helps, too, to have French phrases such as fleurs d’oranger. I have observed, too, that there seems to be something of an ingredient escalation, with each brand looking to outdo its competitors in terms of exotic substances. A quick scan my wife’s current inventory of hair-care products, for instance, includes the following substances: bamboo crème, marine sea kelp, yoghurt, silk protein, avocado, citrus, organic herbs, pure mountain spring water and something called Shea butter. 

Here’s a great example of the artform at its best.  The copywriter manages to work in just about all the requisite elements in a single sentence of 30 words:

Indulge your senses with this weightless creamy blend of Shea butter and ultra whipped yoghurt proteins to nourish and smooth your hair with avocado oils to create smooth fritz-free hair.

Unhappily, the copywriter started strong but weakened toward the end, repeating smooth and hair twice, saying in essence, “This stuff will smooth your hair to create smooth hair.” 

I yield to no one in my admiration of the copy slaves who spend their days producing this sort of fluff, and if any of them are reading these lines, let me say you are the unsung heroes of our profession. But please, I beg you, be brief. There is no way my tired and aging eyes can make any sense out of a dense paragraph of copy in 2.5-point Helvetica light type, and I refuse to carry a magnifying glass into the shower with me.

And can anyone explain to me what is meant by “volumizing shampoo?”