Nice ’n Easy is a shampoo-in permanent hair-colouring product for home use. It was introduced in 1965, billed as the first shampoo-in hair colour, with the advertising tagline, “The closer he gets...the better you look.” Manufactured by

Clairol Clairol is the American personal care-product division of company Wella, specializing in hair coloring and hair care. Clairol was founded in 1931 by Americans Joan Gelb and her husband Lawrence M. Gelb, with business partner and lifelong friend ...

(division of company Coty), Nice ’n Easy extended the company’s home hair colour product lines, which debuted in 1956 with Miss Clairol Hair Colour Bath and the famous “Does she...or doesn’t she?” advertising campaign.

History

In the 1950s, just 7% of American women used hair color (or admitted to doing so), at a time when the common belief was that only actresses, models and other women considered promiscuous altered their natural shade. To help change that attitude, Clairol eschewed celebrities in favor of the average woman for its Miss Clairol and Nice ’n Easy hair color campaigns. Chapter: "True Colors: Hair Dye and the Hidden History of Postwar America" The idea to buck the trend of that era’s advertising style — which emphasized high glamour rather than girl-next-door vignettes — was the brainchild of lead copywriter

Shirley Polykoff Shirley Polykoff (January 18, 1908 – June 4, 1998) was a pioneering woman in American advertising, rising from an entry-level copywriter to a senior executive. Her "Does She... Or Doesn't She?" branding slogan accompanied by "Hair Color So ...

, whose work on the Clairol hair color campaign was a career high point. In her original memo to Clairol, Polykoff, who was inducted into the

Advertising Hall of Fame The Advertising Hall of Fame, operated by the American Advertising Federation (AAF), began in 1948 as a result of a proposal by the New York Ad Club and its president, Andrew Haire, to the Advertising Federation of America, the predecessor organiza ...

in 1980, described the Clairol woman as “Cashmere-sweater-over-the-shoulder types. Like larger-than-life-portraits of the proverbial girl on the block who’s a little prettier than your wife and lives in a house slightly nicer than yours.” Polykoff created the "Does she...or doesn't she" campaign for Miss Clairol in 1956, and "The closer he gets...the better you look" campaign for the launch of Nice 'N Easy in 1965.

References

External links

"True Colors"
(archive

, article from

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

Malcolm Gladwell Malcolm Timothy Gladwell (born 3 September 1963) is an English-born Canadian journalist, author, and public speaker. He has been a staff writer for ''The New Yorker'' since 1996. He has published seven books: '' The Tipping Point: How Little T ...

on hair coloring advertising {{DEFAULTSORT:Nice 'N Easy Procter & Gamble brands Products introduced in 1965 Hair care products