The Lions Barber Collective and VO5 support Long for Barbers campaign
In the 60-second clip the Home Alone with Joel Dommett, Joel said that: ‘I Let someone down that’s really close to me and I want them to know how much they truly mean to me.’
The fans were delighted to discover that the video was in fact a spoof when the comedian, who married wife Hannah Cooper last year, revealed that he has had a hair affair and the wronged party is in fact his barber. A deeply regretful Joel goes on to say he wishes his wandering eye had never been caught by the clippers and he’d resisted the urge to have a home cut.
In a further post, Joel explained he was launching Long for Barbers, which comes from leading hair care brand VO5. The campaign urges people to put down the clippers and pledge to stay true to their barber until they can once again get back in the chair.
As part of the pledge VO5 is asking people to donate what they can to The Lions Barber Collective, which trains local barbers to spot signs of mental ill health in customers and direct them to a resource that will help them.
Joel said: ‘I just felt so guilty for my betrayal, I had to find a way to make it up not just to my own barber; but local barbers across the UK.’ He added that: ‘Donations to Long for Barbers will be used to train barbers to make their chair a safe space for men to have conversations. So while you impatiently wait to get back in one, grow your hair and donate what you can.’
VO5 is kicking off pledges with a £10,000 donation to The Lions Barber Collective, and is asking men to pledge to go long and donate what they can to the campaign. It’s no small ask men around the UK have already endured an unprecedented nine weeks without access to a barber, social media is awash with tales of home cuts gone wrong, and the recent government announcement indicates it could be the 5th of July before they even think about having a professional cut again.
Founded in September 2015, on the belief that the barbershop is a great, safe place for men to talk, The Lions Barber Collective trains barbers to use the time spent talking to clients as an opportunity to spot signs of mental distress. There are 160,000 hairdressers and barbers in the UK, making up 1% of the workforce, and it’s estimated that they each spend nearly 2,000 hours a year listening to their clients.
Tom Chapman, the founder, said: ‘With the donation from VO5 alone we can train just over 65 hair pros with a potential reach of over 32,000 people each week. The idea is not to make barbers into counsellors or psychiatrists, but to enable them to bridge the gap between the communities we serve and the resources that are available, while providing a safe non-judgemental safe space to share, open up, and offload.
Join VO5 and Joel in pledging to Long for Barbers. You may donate here.
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Image credit: Freepik
