I have never been much of an Home Shopping Network fan. Quite possibly because all my mental images of all home shopping channels involve elderly, blue haired French Poodle owners or harried housewives sitting on the edge of their couches waiting for the price of some gaudy costume jewelry to lower. If you grew up in the 80′s and get an immediate image of Peggy Bundy when you hear the station mentioned then you know exactly what I’m talking about. *lol* In my experience both QVC and HSN have merely been televised versions Fingerhut or Harriett Carter catalogues. Now don’t get me wrong. I’ve seen quite a few products from both companies that I would not mind owning, but for the most part a lot of the items carried by both corporations, as well as their presentation, are campy and a bit cheesy. So you can imagine when I happened upon a listing for Carol’s Daughter on the Home Shopping Network channel this morning I was thoroughly amused and intrigued. I mean, CD products are normally carried in such “high end” merchandisers as Sephora and Macy’s, in addition to all nine of its own stores. Call me a hair snob if you like, but to me an hour long feature on HSN seems kind of a step down. Well apparently it seems the home shopping industry has stepped their retail game up over the past decade or two and are now reaching out to a new, more diverse and discriminating demographic. Kudos to them!
Still another reason why I found the placement initially odd, and I know I’m going to sound a bit bigoted when I say this but I’m going to say it anyway… I’d never thought of CD products being formulated or used for anything other than “ethnic hair/skin care.” I mean, look at the advertisements, look at the spokespersons, look at the image representation used on the site. Realistically speaking, health and beauty aids aren’t necessarily racially specific — I use Garnier products, which we know aren’t formulated with “us” in mind, and they work just great despite the bias — but for the longest time Carol’s Daughter target market has consistently been “of colour.” So as I’m sitting here watching Lisa advertise her product alongside Kathy Wolf and not Marlo Smith or Tamara Hooks (HSN‘s two African-American hosts), accompanied by pictures of Caucasian-American hair models, I could not helped but be slightly tickled. As one would expect, all of the caller’s who phoned in their praises of CD products were of the African-American persuasion, which gave foundation to my original reaction and tickled me more. But eventually I got over the “culture shock” and all at once could not help but be impressed by the far reaching ambition of Lisa‘s marketing ideals, and her steps to break out of the colour box in order to expand her company’s customer base. With a product line as wonderful as CD‘s hair and skin care line, it would be a shame to limit it’s benefits to just one ethnic group, right? So kudos to her as well!
After doing a bit of research I learned that this is not Lisa‘s first time making the HSN rounds. I haven’t been able to narrow down the exact date of her debut appearance, but I was able to unearth a plethora of Youtube video clips featuring Lisa and Carol’s Daughter products that span as far back as October 2009. Today’s presentation featured the Khoret Amen Leave-In Conditioner, Body Aches Bath Salts, Peppermint Foot Lotion, and of course my CD mainstays Hair Milk and Healthy Hair Butter. Price wise each product were comparable to what you’d find at any other location (shipping might be lower at HSN and there are a few items available with free shipping), but seeing as there more than a few cities that do not have CD vendors, it’s good to know there’s one more venue available to feed that hair and skin care fix from Lisa‘s kitchen.
Healthy Hair Wishes,
