The Wait for Curly Hair Emojis is Over Thanks to Dove Hair

USA - español

Nearly 80% of women and girls with curly hair feel existing emojis underrepresent their hair type[1]

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Nov 04, 2015, 08:03 ET

ENGLEWOOD CLIFFS, N.J., Nov. 4, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- In today's increasingly digital and social world, 74% of people report using Emojis daily[2], and 67% of all women and girls agree they can better express what they want to say with Emojis than with words[3]. Yet despite the popularity, expansion and diversification of Emoji graphics within the official Unicode keyboard following recent updates, there still remains a "one size fits all" hair type for female emojis – straight and sleek, the traditional beauty ideal.

Experience the interactive Multimedia News Release here: http://www.multivu.com/players/English/7676351-dove-curly-hair-emojis/

To offer a solution for the one in three women in the US with curly hair[4] and the 82% of curly women and girls who say they'd like to see more female emoji options depicting what their hair looks like[5], Dove Hair is proudly introducing the Dove Love Your Curls Emojis – the first emoji keyboard designed to represent curly girls everywhere. Now when curly women and girls send messages to friends, they can finally express their beautiful, curly self!

The Dove Love Your Curls Emoji Keyboard, developed in partnership with Snaps -- the first end-to-end platform for brand marketing across messaging applications and devices, are now available for free download in the App Store and Google Play, and can be used in text and messenger systems, including iMessage, SMS/text, Facebook messenger and WhatsApp (standard data rates apply). The keyboard contains 27 unique curly hair designs, with selectable skin tone and hair color – resulting in a total of 131 curly emoji variations, including seven animated GIFs to bring curl expression and love to life!

Dove's Love Your Curls Emojis are part of the brand's ongoing Love Your Curls campaign, which encourages women to celebrate, love and take pride in their curly hair.

"Dove Hair is committed to redefining traditional standards of beauty and ensuring women and girls see accurate reflections of themselves in the world around them, including, and especially, in digital and social media - which is why we're so excited to introduce the Dove Love Your Curls Emojis," shared Rob Candelino, VP of Haircare at Unilever. "1 in 3 women in the United States have curly or wavy hair, yet there are zero images of these women today in the increasingly common language of emojis. That felt wrong to us, so we are fixing it and hope by doing so, we will continue inspiring all women to love their curls."

To understand the emotional impact of inclusionary emojis on women and girls, the brand commissioned a survey of 1500 women and girls in the US on their emoji usage. Sali A. Tagliamonte, Professor of Linguistics at the University of Toronto, has partnered with Dove Hair on the launch of the Love Your Curls Emojis to help shed light on this research and how self-expression via emojis has become an important aspect of the evolving language landscape. "When you have a symbol that embodies someone's identity, it's powerful," says Tagliamonte. "The new Dove Love Your Curls Emojis have the ability to empower curly women to be more themselves."

Additionally, to celebrate the launch of the Dove Love Your Curls Emojis, Dove Hair will also be partnering with Twitter so that each time women and girls share a #LoveYourCurls moment, a custom Dove Curly Emoji will auto-generate within the tweet.

Start showing the world how much you #LoveYourCurls by tweeting the hashtag on Twitter, and be sure to download the Dove Love Your Curls Emoji keyboard in the App Store or Google Play to start using the Love Your Curls Emojis in all text and messenger apps.

About Dove^®Hair
Dove Hair offers a wide range of solutions that provide deep nourishment and repair to meet women's specific hair needs, whether it is curly, dry, frizzy, in need of volume or damaged. The range includes shampoo, conditioners, treatments and styling products.

About Unilever North America
Unilever is one of the world's leading suppliers of Food, Home and Personal Care products with sales in more than 190 countries. Working to create a better future every day, we help people feel good, look good and get more out of life. In the United States and Canada, the portfolio includes brand icons such as: Axe, Becel, Ben & Jerry's, Breyers, Caress, Clear Scalp & Hair Therapy, Consort For Men, Country Crock, Degree, Dove personal care products, Fruttare, Good Humor, Hellmann's, I Can't Believe It's Not Butter!, Just for Me!, Klondike, Knorr, Lever 2000, Lipton, Magnum, Motions, Nexxus, Noxzema, Pond's, Popsicle, Promise, Q-tips, Simple, St. Ives, Suave, TIGI, TONI&GUY Hair Meet Wardrobe, TRESemme and Vaseline. All of the preceding brand names are trademarks or registered trademarks of the Unilever Group of Companies.

Our ambition is to double the size of our business, while reducing our overall environmental footprint (including sourcing, consumer use and disposal) and increasing our positive social impact. We are committed to helping more than a billion people take action to improve their health and well-being, sourcing all our agricultural raw materials sustainably by 2020, and decoupling our growth from our environmental impact. Supporting our three big goals, we have defined seven pillars, underpinned by targets encompassing social, environmental and economic areas. See more on the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan at http://www.unileverusa.com/sustainable-living/ or http://www.unilever.ca/sustainable-living/.

Unilever employs approximately 11,500 people across North America – generating more than $10 billion in sales in 2013. For more information, visit www.unileverusa.com or www.unilever.ca.

[1] Dove Hair Study Conducted by Edelman Berland, October 2015
[2] Swift Media, August 2015
[3] Dove Hair Study Conducted by Edelman Berland, October 2015
[4] H&E Study, 2014
[5] Dove Hair Study Conducted by Edelman Berland, October 2015

Contacts:
Samantha Wannemacher/Edelman
212-729-2478
[email protected]

Kathryn Fernandez/Unilever
[email protected]

SOURCE Unilever