Hair > Articles > Davines Sustainable Beauty Day: Planting Trees and Nurturing Hope
Davines Sustainable Beauty Day: Planting Trees and Nurturing Hope
By: Angie Sterkel
Davines is in the business of creating beautiful hair…and so much more. The company is also committed to its mission to create products and programs that work to sustain beauty, culture, life and the world as a whole. It’s from this sense of responsibility that the Davines Sustainable Beauty Day program was born. Teaming up with The Fruit Tree PlantingFoundation to create this unique charitable initiative, Davines seeks to raise awareness of environmental responsibility while benefitting and strengthening impoverished communities through the planting of fruit trees. And one Chicago salon owner learned that Sustainable Beauty Day strengthens the human condition, too.
Sustainable Beauty Day calls for salons typically closed on Mondays to open their doors and offer cutting and styling services free of charge. Clients are encouraged to make $15 minimum donations for the services, with 100 percent of the proceeds benefitting The Fruit Tree Planting Foundation. In 2011, participating salons helped raise more than $25,000 and plant 6,000 fruit trees in Mozambique, Africa. Salon Blondeof Chicago, IL was the top fundraising salon in 2011, and co-founder Dawn Doerfler Koch was invited to travel to Africa to help plant trees—an experience she will never forget.
“The longer I’m home, the more I’m feeding off of my experience,” Dawn says. “It was probably the most fulfilling experience of my life.” As a hairdresser and salon owner, Dawn admitted she didn’t know what her role would be once she arrived in Mozambique. “I definitely don’t have a green thumb, and I didn’t know what shoes I would be able to fill or how I’d be best utilized. But I soon realized that my reason for being there was to make personal connections with the children and families we are helping. Hairdressers truly have a gift for making people feel happy—for affecting them in a positive way, and I feel I made a difference by adding that human element and making it a special experience.”
The decision to participate in Sustainable Beauty Day wasn’t easy for Salon Blonde at first. “We’re normally open seven days a week, so we had to think long and hard about whether to ‘give up’ that seventh day for charity,” Dawn says. “But our salon takes on a charitable cause every year, so once we decided to participate in Sustainable Beauty Day, it became part of our budget. We received a ton of support from our distributor, too.” She admits that she received some push back from staff members in the beginning, but they were all soon on board. “Every single one of my stylists believes it’s our responsibility to make the world a better place. It’s common sense.” That belief is a big reason why Salon Blonde offers Davines products in the first place. “I love the brand not just for the amazing haircolor and the fresh, sexy youthfulness of the products, but because it’s a company that goes so much deeper than the surface. It’s caring, it’s sustainable. It’s something that my young staff relates to and cares about.”
The community also got on board in a big way to support Dawn and the Salon Blonde team. “Our clients really respected and admired what we were doing, and in many cases, they contributed more money than the suggested donation,” explains Dawn. Rallying the staff and the community around the cause ultimately helped Salon Blonde raise the largest amount of money for Sustainable Beauty Day—$2,675—giving Dawn the opportunity to travel to Africa to see the direct results of the team’s hard work. “It was amazing to see how the people in Mozambique reacted to the tree planting,” she says. “We were giving them a special gift. We created a story for them. The children became attached to the trees and when they go to water their tree and care for it, they’ll always remember how it got there. We’re all connected now. We’re all part of a bigger picture. Participating in Sustainable Beauty Day has made me ask myself why we can’t do more to improve the world around us. Why can’t we plant a new tree every time we take one down?” With Sustainable Beauty Day, that dream is definitely becoming a reality.
Get Involved in Sustainable Beauty Day Monday, October 15, 2012 Participating salons will open their doors and offer cutting and styling services for $15 minimum donations. This year, 100 percent of donations will go to planting up to 6,000 fruit trees to benefit impoverished communities in Brazil. Contact your local Davines sales consultant or emailj.blanco@davines.usto get involved.
Watch the video (submitted by the Fruit Tree Planting Foundation):
Sustainable Beauty Day calls for salons typically closed on Mondays to open their doors and offer cutting and styling services free of charge. Clients are encouraged to make $15 minimum donations for the services, with 100 percent of the proceeds benefitting The Fruit Tree Planting Foundation. In 2011, participating salons helped raise more than $25,000 and plant 6,000 fruit trees in Mozambique, Africa. 
utilized. But I soon realized that my reason for being there was to make personal connections with the children and families we are helping. Hairdressers truly have a gift for making people feel happy—for affecting them in a positive way, and I feel I made a difference by adding that human element and making it a special experience.” 
The community also got on board in a big way to support Dawn and the Salon Blonde team. “Our clients really respected and admired what we were doing, and in many cases, they contributed more money than the suggested donation,” explains Dawn. Rallying the staff and the community around the cause ultimately helped Salon Blonde raise the largest amount of money for Sustainable Beauty Day—$2,675—giving Dawn the opportunity to travel to Africa to see the direct results of the team’s hard work. “It was amazing to see how the people in Mozambique reacted to the tree planting,” she says. “We were giving them a special gift. We created a story for them. The children became attached to the trees and when they go to water their tree and care for it, they’ll always remember how it got there. We’re all connected now. We’re all part of a bigger picture. Participating in Sustainable Beauty Day has made me ask myself why we can’t do more to improve the world around us. Why can’t we plant a new tree every time we take one down?” With Sustainable Beauty Day, that dream is definitely becoming a reality. 
