Anthony Morrison is truly a shear genius. As the winner of the hit Bravo reality show, Shear Genius, Anthony saw his hairstylist career skyrocket to include working with top brands like Shiseido, opening new salons, and product lines. But what Anthony is most proud of is helping people achieve their hair care goals, particularly parents who might be experiencing postpartum hair loss and other hair-raising issues. Here’s his story.
Let’s talk about what you have going on right now.
I still own my salon in Manhattan Beach, California. I’ve got my own haircare line that I launched last year. And that’s grown tremendously well. And it’s a fantastic line for this moisturizer — everybody needs moisture in their heads. It’s been just a tremendous success. We’re launching in different areas. We’re trying to get into Canada right now. We’re really working hard on it, but it’s a great, fantastic line.
My haircare line launched last year and it’s called Anthony Morrison Weightless Moisture. The reason why I developed the line was because a lot of my clients that come into the salon have either chemically treated hair colors or perms or they’ve been flat ironing their hair and blow drying their hair every day. And they’ve been using a moisturizing shampoo and conditioner and at the end of the day, their hair just felt weighted down and felt heavy and lifeless. That’s what got me thinking about creating a line that was going to give the maximum moisture to the hair but without any of the weight.
We used a few things like Ylang, Ylang, jasmine and orange blossom. We’ve extracted essential oils from both plants, and we infuse the oil into the haircare line. Shiseido spent a year developing and researching how that would interact with the hair and how that would moisturize the hair, but without any of the heavy weight. It works perfectly — I use it on just about every client on the planet, from finest to the thickest of hair. It leaves the hair shiny and well-conditioned and overly moisturized. I just love it to death. It really does what it says it’s going to do.
I like that it applies to so many women. For me now after having two kids, your hair changes; its texture and consistency. Of all the lovely things that go with having a child right, it can really mess up your hair.
[laughs] Definitely, definitely. I hear that from my clients all the time. After the baby comes, their hair can start thinning out and they’re not feeling that their hair is conditioned anymore. This line addresses those issues. The spray gives the hair like a lot of body, especially when your hair is thinning and you want to add that luminous feeling to your hair, but you don’t want to put anything that’s going to be heavy on your hair. The body fine spray in my collection is really super lightweight, but it gives your hair a tremendous amount of body; it’s fantastic.
So now what has the response been to your line?
The response has been really good. When I was testing the line, I tested it on just about every client I have. And I had my other staff members in my salon test it on their clients, and the response was great. One of the things that I was concerned about was, if the response was great because they were my clients and I’ve been doing their hair for years and they didn’t want to say anything negative about it! [laughs] But then I went on Shop NBC and sold the product there, too. Just from what people were writing and commenting on the product online, it was a great response with wonderful feedback. I’ve had people personally email me thanking me about the product.
Do you have any plans on opening a second salon like one in New York maybe or Miami?
Within the next couple years, I do plan on opening another salon. I don’t know if it’s going to be New York right away, but that is one of my goals. I’d love to have something on the East Coast. I’m probably going to do another one in Los Angeles.
Now in terms of your line, what products are you planning on putting out either this year or next year?
We have a new product that’s coming out this year, and it’s called Hydra Heaven and it’s heavenly. It does everything you want a product to do and more. It’s the leave in conditioner, it’s the bodifying spray, and it has anti-humectants in it. You know, when you blow dry your hair, and then you go out in the moist or damp or humid weather and your hair kind of reverses a bit? Well, it has a built-in anti-humectant. It just stops that atmosphere from attacking your hair and your hair stays straighter, smoother, and shinier. And it also has UV protection in it. It’s truly an all-in-one.
I’m working with Shiseido because firstly, they have the best research and development of most any haircare line I’ve ever seen. They really spend a lot of time and that’s what got me so interested and excited to work with Shiseido because of their development. So I spent some time with them in their labs and just looking at everything they do. And I was like, “Boy, you guys, are the ones for me for sure because you spend a lot of time and you really develop great products.” And so when they say they’re going to do something, they really do it.
How has life changed for you since Shear Genius?
It’s been a blur since then. Shear Genius was probably the best thing that happened to my career. It was absolutely fantastic. Sometimes people don’t want these shows because it killed their career, or they ended up being painted in a bad light. That wasn’t the case for me. I was treated with a lot of respect on the show and obviously I won the show so that didn’t hurt, either! [laughs] Everything that came from it was really good, like immense publicity. My salon went to being busy to being, “I can’t handle how many clients are coming through the door right now” busy. I gained some fantastic employees through the exposure. I’ve been flying everywhere and I’m hosting shows like NAHA, the North American Heritage Awards where I’m one of the judges. It’s been nothing but positive and a blessing.