I must be getting older.  Somehow I just can't seem to connect with my 18 yr old son's music and his desire to wear his jeans slung low so that I can clearly see his underwear. It just doesn't seem right. He tells me it's part of the new fashion that I mustn't understand.

There's a new fashion in the professional beauty industry as well. It's the fashion where products traditionally sold for use in beauty and hair salons turn up repeatedly in retail outlets.

Sometimes the effect on the professional salon industry is positive. A few years back OPI made the shift to a wider distribution of their nail lacquer and the effect at the salon level has been positive with improved brand acceptance and greater salon retail sales for the product.

In other areas it would seem that the end result may not be so positive for the professional market. A quick look through your local shopping centre will almost invariably turn up one of a number of national franchise networks all wanting to sell professional hair and beauty products. In recent years depilatory products have featured strongly, even those brands with significant volume within the professional market ( some are still labelled "For Professional Use Only")

Whilst in Melbourne recently in wandered into such a store to find a waxing kit for sale. The two young staff members where keen to sell me their wares, but lamented that they didn't yet have the sort of wax in the kit that could be used for eyebrows, bikini lines etc. When I suggested to them that the kit did have this sort of product they smiled knowingly and insisted I was wrong. A few minutes later when we peeled back a replaceable lid the dilema was solved .... and yes the kit did have some hot wax. Clearly the product education was a little lacking.

I'm left to wonder exactly where this leaves professional salons, when the tools of their trade are openly sold to people who invariably could be their clients.

Maybe it's part of a new fashion that I just don't understand.

Ray