Aveda is looking to the artists’ community for a partnership timed to World Water Day.
The Estée Lauder Cos.-owned hair care brand has tapped Nigerian artist Láolú Senbanjo to design a limited-edition bottle of its Botanical Repair Overnight Hair Serum, which will retail for $56 on Aveda’s website and in its own stores, salons and spas.
“When I started working together with Aveda on a special Earth Month collaboration, I drew immediate inspiration from the richness of my culture. I wanted the design to reflect the values that are significant both to Aveda and to the principles of my heritage, including self-awareness, inner beauty, and responsibility to nurture and protect the environment,” Senbanjo said in an email.
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From each sale of the product, $20 will go to Charity: Water, a charity focused on creating access to clean water, up to $600,000. The collaboration falls under the brand’s The Power of Every Drop campaign, which also includes a campaign urging employees and consumers alike to walk for charity, and is encouraging consumers to skip hair washing on Earth Day, April 22.
“We’ve always been cruelty-free, 100 percent vegan and, most recently, B Corp-certified,” said David Hutchinson, the brand’s senior vice president of global marketing. “Earth Month is a great opportunity for us — it aligns with our core values of environmental stewardship, and water has been an important cause for us.”
Senbanjo made an ideal partner given the messages of his body of work, Hutchinson said. “There’s exceptional talent, and we looked at his artwork and what it stands for — he’s committed to celebrating all types of beauty and advocating for social and environmental causes,” Hutchinson said. “It deeply resonated with us at the brand, and his work embodies the spirit of Earth Month.”
The brand’s social conscience has also been a key tenet of Aveda‘s value proposition. “When they choose Aveda, they’re choosing a brand that not only delivers products of high efficacy and amazing product performance, but they’re able to purchase from a brand which has a mission of care and that’s made from high-quality, natural ingredients,” Hutchinson said. “It’s reflected in our Earth Month program, and our partnership with Charity: Water.”
The partnership comes as prestige hair care continues to boom. According to 2023 data from circana, prestige hair care grew 14 percent — outpacing the 6 percent growth the category saw in the mass market.