“The girls on my estate growing up can afford them too.”
From Ballinteer in Dublin to the bright lights of magazine cover shoots and red carpets, Andrew Fitzsimons is one of the biggest names in hair.
Launching his latest collection with Boots, his one aim is to make professional products affordable, using the same products on the day to day woman as he does on The Kardashian sisters.
After 21 years of trialing and testing different products, Andrew began to see a gap in the market for the specifics he wanted, and decided that if nobody else was going to create them, he would need to – but at an affordable price.
A self proclaimed solution finder, Andrew has created a line of haircare and styling products that take inspiration from skincare, ensuring your hair is just as well looked after with ingredients designed to target specifics areas.
“I wanted it to be shocking when you see the price tag,” he told Her. “Knowing that everybody at home can afford them. The girls on my estate growing up can afford them too. Because generally when things are low cost or value, they’re low quality and low design, low aspiration.
“I grew up relatively poor and it didn’t stop me from dreaming or wanting luxury or wanting beautiful things. That was definitely my agenda for that collection.”
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“I’ve been doing hair for 21 years, so this collection is really 21 years of experience, of work, of travelling around the world, of working with every type of woman, every hair type in every climate,” he went on.
“I’m hearing so much feedback from women all around the world, hearing their hair complaints every single day. It’s like having an audience that is just constantly giving you feedback, whether you like it or not. So, I used that to my benefit.”
The skincare inspiration can be seen in almost every single product in Andrew’s latest collection, making way for people to treat their hair in the same way they do their skin – and look after it just as well.
“We have ingredients that are really inspired by skincare,” he said. “We have hydronic acid in our shine collection, we have caffeine in our volumising collection. We have a thing called the AF bonding technology in all of our wet styling products.
“Honestly, a lot of the concept of this brand is that I was really jealous of the makeup industry and the skincare industry. Haircare just never has the innovations like that protein based complex that we were talking about, that was one of the biggest innovations in hair in years.”
Not only are the products created in such a precise and distinct way, Andrew also aims to give back in any project he’s involved in.
Working a lot with the Trans community, Andrew donates portions of proceeds to several charities as well as featuring many trans people in his shoots.
“When I’m friends with somebody, I want to be able to support them,” he said. “I can’t be friends with a woman and not support women’s rights. If someone is friends with me, I expect them to support me as a gay person.
“In our community, unfortunately, most of the organisations that were created to support LGBT people… usually most of the resources are funnelled to the G in the LGBT. For me to be solution oriented, it would make sense to start where people are most vulnerable and unfortunately, the trans community is disproportionately marginalised.”
AF Hair by Andrew Fitzsimons is available exclusively at BOOTS in Ireland & the UK in store and on boots.com now.
