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By Minda Smiley, Reporter

April 21, 2016 | 3 min read

Over the past year, Dove has been campaigning on behalf of curly haired girls everywhere to try and make curls more accepted since “only four out of 10 curly haired girls think their hair is ‘beautiful,’” according to the brand.

Now, the Unilever brand is shifting its focus a bit to make its message even more inclusive, encouraging all women to embrace their hair – whether it’s naturally curly, short, straightened, gray or dyed blue.

In a video called ‘Love Your Hair,’ Dove is featuring real women telling stories of how their hair styles or choices have at times made them feel self-conscious or have lowered their self-esteem. For example, a women with dyed blue hair says that people are often surprised when they find out she is a financial analyst.

A blonde Asian woman states that she “grew up thinking that I couldn’t be blonde because Asians just didn’t do that,” while a woman with long gray hair laments that “a friend once told me if I put color back on my hair, it would make me look better.”

But each woman in the video has overcome these criticisms and is wearing their hair how they’d like to, which Dove hopes inspires other women to have the confidence to do the same.

Mark Whelan, global creative director at Havas Worldwide, said that the idea for the video stemmed from research that found “a shockingly low number of women” feel confident about their hair. To try and change that, he said the agency chose to cast real women who are happy with their unexpected, different or unconventional hairstyles.

According to Dove, 86 per cent of US women believe that the media and society put a lot of pressure on women to have hair that looks a certain way. The brand points out that a quick Google search of “beautiful hair” brings up images of mostly white women with shiny and styled brunette locks.

Dove is hoping to change these attitudes with its mission to “broaden the definition of beautiful hair by celebrating all hair and inspiring real women to do the same.”

The video was created by Havas Helia and is part of the beauty brand’s ongoing ‘Campaign for Real Beauty’ that began in 2004.

#pathtoparity Dove Havas

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