VIP Publishing is delighted to announce that the eir Power of Women Awards are back.
These awards celebrate the best and brightest female entrepreneurs in Ireland, across the worlds of fashion, technology, beauty, lifestyle, wellness and more!
The winners, decided by an expert panel and awarded at an exclusive lunch in Dublin’s Marker Hotel on November 18th, will be profiled in the December issue of VIP Magazine.
The Hair Care Award sponsored by Dyson shines a light on our mane heroes who have created some of our go-to products. Here’s a bit more information about our inspiring nominees…
Anita Donoghue – Annutri
Donoghue is the owner of the Hair Cafe in Smithfield, and from working in the industry she saw a gap in the market for a supplement that truly targeted hair growth and health.
Discovering that most hair products go directly onto the hair and mask underlying problems that need to be treated from within, she realised that in addition to a healthy lifestyle, taking a supplement with specific nutrients needed by hair can be extremely helpful in making it healthy, shiny and voluminous from within. Working as a single mother, she spent her evenings going to college before she launched Annutri.
Annutri is now stocked in 198 salons UK and Ireland and has even made it as far afield as one salon in Australia in just two years. Anita has scooped several awards over the course of her career, including two Business Woman of the Year Awards in 2021. The brand continue to change people’s lives who struggle with hair loss.
Ceira Lambert – Hair Consultancy/C30
Renowned in the industry and loved by celebrities, Ceira is sought after since 2001 for her expertise in hair extensions.
She is a dedicated specialist in the application and aftercare of professionally applied extensions, working with the top brand Gold Fever. Ceira decided to add another string to her now recently by launching C30, a hair extension protection range.
The collection includes four products all formulated to protect hair extensions. After trialling the product for nearly 3 years and testing 29 different formulas, the 30th and final sample was signed off on which brought the name of C30 to life.
Nancy Cavanagh – Belle Hair
The entrepreneur and owner of the Belle Hair started out doing house calls — and now owns one of Galway’s largest hair salons. The salon sells a range of top brands from Olaplex to Kevin Murphy, as well as its own range of hair extensions and clip-in ponytails.
Nancy also brought out her own range of brushes in 2017, The Belle Brush, after years of recommending multiple hairbrushes to her clients, and realising there was no one brush to cover all the necessities that hair extension clients needed.
The range has since expanded, from the BabyBelle, for on-the-go brushing or for kids, to the Belle Backcomb. The brushes are so popular, with professional hair stylist Jenny Rhodes McLeaneven using them on the set of global tv drama Bridgerton.
Onagh O’Driscoll – Platinum Hair Extensions
Onagh launched Platinum in 2011 with just three staff, and it has gone on to become one of Ireland’s leading hair extension businesses.
She started out at 19 with a mobile hair extension service called Luscious Lox Hair extensions, before opening a salon in Bray called All Dolled Up.
She then moved on to Platinum at the age of 22. Just over ten years on, Platinum has three state-of-the-art salons in Dublin, Galway and Cork, an award-winning aftercare range, a distribution company, and a training academy, with 650 stockists around Ireland and the UK. Platinum is highly regarded in the haircare industry, winning a number of prestigious awards.
Camillat Mashaun – FreeBornNoble
FreeBornNoble Hair is a thriving Dublin-based wigs and extension company, founded by Camillat Mashaun.
The business began with Camillat, who has over 30k followers on Instagram, posting content of her wearing and styling wigs. This content grew momentum, and she soon established a company of her own.
FreeBornNoble sources all of its hair ethically, providing the highest grade of virgin human hair extensions, lace systems, and hand and machine-made wigs, as well as offering beauty, and haircare products and accessories.
With clients around the world, the business has also been praised for the quality of its wigs used on contestants of reality show Love Island.
Mairead Ronan – FARO
FARO is a multi-award winning range of haircare products, with the aim to arm everyone with a hairbrush that will blow dry their hair at home to a salon-quality finish.
Co-founded by Mairead Ronan, former Today FM lunchtime host and presenter of Ireland’s Fittest Family, her media career was the inspiration for the business.
In 2016, as she fixed her hair onset after being caught in a rain shower, she realised there was a gap in the market for an excellent hairbrush that could give the effect of a professional-looking blow-dry. Along with business partner Debbie Lawless, the FARO range was born, and the range has grown considerably since its inception.
Trudy Hayes – Raven
Renowned hairstylist Trudy is the powerhouse owner of Raven. After years of working with leading designers, celebrities, huge brands like L’Oreal, as well as some of Ireland’s best-known salons, Trudy decided to create an app in 2015 that would connect Irish hair and beauty professionals and those in need of such treatments.
She was inspired to create the business after a long time in hospital, when it dawned on her that there was nothing on the market to allow people to have beauty appointments away from the salon.
While the app ceased during the pandemic, Trudy showed her entrepreneurial skills during the challenges, delivering hair/beauty survival kits, as well as developing her own products, The Raven Stick and Tonic.
Yolanda Cooper – We Are Paradoxx
We Are Paradoxx has grown a huge fan base with its plastic-free and sustainable products, and last year it reached a milestone mark in investment funding — a huge £3 million.
The Belfast hair and body care brand was founded by entrepreneur and activist Yolanda Cooper in 2019. Yolanda was passionate about creating high-performance, natural, vegan and cruelty-free products, fuelled by natural plant-powered extracts and using eco-friendly packaging.
The products are innovative, such as its Hangover Hair Elixir made with Irish whiskey or Super Fuel, a multitasking hair and body oil housed in a mini fuel can. Yolanda established Plastic Free Beauty Day to support and encourage the beauty industry to move away from plastic packaging.
