Clairol - Advertising History

Advertising History

Clairol’s one-step home hair color was a breakthrough in the beauty industry, as was its advertising campaign. Clairol hired the advertising firm Foote, Cone & Belding, which assigned the account to a junior copywriter (Shirley Polykoff, the only female copywriter at the firm). Polykoff's future mother-in-law inspired the “Does she…or doesn’t she?” slogan. After meeting Polykoff for the first time, she took her son aside and asked him about the true color of his girlfriend’s hair. “Does she color her hair, or doesn’t she?” the embarrassed Polykoff could imagine her mother-in-law-to-be asking. Although Polykoff did color her hair, the practice was not something to which women openly admitted during the Depression (when her future mother-in-law first asked the question). In 1956 (when Polykoff was assigned the Clairol campaign), hair dye was still considered something not used by genteel women.

To counter the stigma of hair color and create a wholesome, sentimental image for Clairol, early print ads—some of which were shot by fashion photographers Richard Avedon and Irving Penn—featured girl-next-door models accompanied by children with hair the same color. “Does she…or doesn’t she?” became an effective slogan: within six years 70 percent of all adult women were coloring their hair, and Clairol’s sales increased fourfold. In 1967, Polykoff was inducted into the Advertising Hall of Fame.

The company's "If I’ve only one life to live, let me live it as a blonde" slogan was recorded for the ad campaign by actress Rosemary Rice. The company achieved notoriety in the late 1990s and early 2000s for its ads for Clairol Herbal Essences shampoo. Said as "a totally organic experience", the ads often featured women washing their hair and making sounds similar to those of someone having an orgasm.