Get Your Salon Ready For LGBTQIA+ Pride Month 2023

June is Pride month! No matter what your personal orientation or how you identify, the LGBTQIA+ (yeah, I know, it’s a lot of letters!) community is growing each year as the general idea of diversity, individuality, freedom, inclusion and non-judgement become commonplace in modern society. 

What started as a single ‘Gay Pride’ day in the 70’s in recognition of the 1969 Stonewall Riots, has now grown to a whole month of celebration and events with many cities holding their own Pride festivals all over the world. For anyone involved in the beauty industry, this presents a great opportunity to connect with those in your local community and perhaps have some fun creating some funky rainbow hairstyles in your salon!

Now lets look at what kind of steps you can take this month:

Get colourful & get the flags out!

Pride is associated with rainbows and flags and there is bound to be all sorts of ways that you can decorate the salon with them. However, be mindful of the fact that it’s not just about a rainbow anymore.

If you are UK based, you might tend to associate a rainbow with the NHS thanks to Covid and the whole ‘Clap for Carers’ and ‘Thank the NHS’ initiatives in 2020. Many people were unknowingly displaying Pride flags in their windows not understanding their true meaning!

More importantly however, is the fact that while Pride initially leaned more towards gay men, over the years other groups have created their own flags with specific colours. There are a lot of them and it can feel a little overwhelming perhaps, but I’m certainly not suggesting that you display all of them in your salon! But perhaps you could just pick up a couple of different ones and put them here and there just to show that you are aware of the difference. Little touches like this can make you stand out from others who just go along with the crowds without taking the time to research in more detail.

Avoid ‘rainbow washing’

So this appears to contradict the last point somewhat… don’t just put up a bunch of rainbow flags and be done with it. So many businesses do this when they actually have absolutely no genuine interest in or concern with the real cause. Sure, you want to show your support initially in a visual way but you must go further than that. Actually get involved in some way.

You’ll probably notice that a bunch of products that you use come with special ‘Pride editions’ this month but be careful here – if all they do is stick a rainbow on the packaging, do nothing else and then charge more for the product then avoid it! Only use and promote products that are providing some kind of support or service in the LGBT community such as donating a portion of the profits to a related charity.

Get involved with your local Pride

Every major city has it’s own Pride celebration so find your nearest one. If you are in the UK then Pride Events has you covered, and for those of you in the USA and the rest of the world, refer to this Pride Calendar from the IGLTA.

Local Prides are always on the lookout for funding so if you have the budget then consider sponsoring the event, but this isn’t likely to get many people into your chairs. Instead, why not take out a stall at the event and offer people a quick makeover? Depending on what kind of salon you run you might want to focus on hair or face paint & glitter for example. 

This is a also a great way to sell some temporary colour products and give out a coupon to get those people coming back to you at another time. Use the opportunity to chat to people at the event and ask them questions. What would they like to see in an inclusive salon? And don’t forget to grab the email address of everyone you talk to so you can contact them after the event.

Show off Pride hair & makeup

Pride celebrations are choc full of colour and you’ll see a fantastic range of outfits, hairstyles, funky makeup and other adornments and accessories. Many people will do their own treatments at home but some like to get a professional job done in a salon and this is your chance to shine.

You can go crazy coming up with new ways to cut and colour hair of all types and apply makeup. Grab some volunteers, take plenty of photos and blast them all over your social media to show your audience that your salon is the place to come for their Pride makeover. 

Make inclusivity part of your salon culture

Pride season might be over in a month, but please don’t stop there. Embracing inclusivity needs to become a core fundamental in all aspects of your business. This isn’t just good business, this is also just being a decent human being. I’m not saying that you need to hang up the rainbow flags all year round; what I am talking about runs deeper than that.

The idea of inclusivity isn’t just about sexual preference or gender identity, it’s about including people of all kinds without any kind of discrimination – not on age, race,on physical ability, on looks and so on. What kind of people do you have working in your salon? Have you innocently filled your staff with a group of people that all look the same? 

Also observe your core clientele. Are they a diverse bunch of have you attracted a very specific type of person? It can take a while to shift the culture of the workspace but moving towards openness and inclusivity will massively extend your reach over time. 

If you don’t know where to start then do your research; read blogs, get involved in Facebook groups, look at how your competitors are doing things. Make sure that your salon is a warm and welcoming safe place for every person who walks in the door.