“They still think I’m crazy,” said Tevya Finger, host of the Late Night Show with Tev Finger when asked what his coworkers thought of the idea of a talk show aimed at hairdressers.
This show is what you would expect of a late night show, funny, entertaining, full of meaty information underneath the humor, but the most distinctive aspect of the show is it the role it is taking in changing the industry to a point of shared information for growth, as opposed to the competitive nature which has for so many years been the underbelly of the salon industry.
Only four episodes in, the show has had fantastic success. The investment was a heavy but the turnout has resulted better than anything that Finger expected, proving only one thing: there is a conversation to be had and there are many people who want to hear more about how the industry is developing from the inside out.
“Every hairdresser, it doesn’t matter what brand, what salon or what are they doing can watch the show and learn about what is going on in the industry,” said Tev. “We have only put up four but the outcome has been off the Richter scale. We have gotten so many emails, and people are actually going back and watching the first episodes. So from a views perspective we’re already over 100,000 views, and it just started!“
Production development, brand owners, celebrity stylists, Instagram mavens all have things the want and need to share about their perspective, but until now, there was no way to hear what they had to say and nobody experienced enough to ask the complex questions. Tev Finger has created the platform because he saw the void. The doors are not closed, and now there is a platform that is dedicated to bring to light the intricacies of the many careers and individuals involved in the work of beauty.
“I have been associated with brands as a brand developer-person, so I’m more like an entrepreneur and what I didn’t want to do is have people think that we’re trying to sell our brands. That’s not what this is about. In fact, sometimes I feel like its a bit of a disservice to us because I am purposefully not talking at all about our brands and I don’t want to scare people away from the couch,” said Finger.
Luxury Brand Partners is funding the show, and with his word as president, it has become the hobby of the company. Finger, however, has made the conscious decision of keeping LBP apart from the show.
“LBP takes all the energy and time and money to produce it, but I think it is our way of giving back to the industry. So we will see Zak at Toni&Guy thinking, well what can we do?” explains Tev.
The show is taking a digital approach to disseminate itself, not paid advertising, but rather the organic clicks and social media platforms to get the word out. One very particular aspect of the show is also the merger between the old-school aspect of hairdressing versus the new social media hairstylists/entrepreneur that is making a business and a clientele using unconventional means. Likes, retweets and links seem to be the way to entertain the new generation of hairstylists and bringing to their screens the ideals and foundations that taught leaders like John Paul DeJoria and Zak Mascolo from Toni&Guy.
“What’s happening is that we will have Larisa Love and Jay Wesley Olsen and they are part of the new generation which is social media savy, and they each have like 200,000 followers so they will Instagram the show and our following is now growing by itself. It’s exponential!”
As the President of what is becoming one of the biggest umbrella brands in the beauty industry and founder of Oribe, Tev Finger has a career where he has had to wear many different hats, and has had the honor of meeting people from all facets of the beauty industry. He uses his experience and his sense of humor to invite his guests to speak on the topics.
“We’ve all been doing education in the salon industry for a very long time so if you take anybody that has been educating, they are very comfortable in front of the camera. You have to have a love of people and they do.”
Whether it is a startup struggling with making ends meet or a international beauty brand, anyone interested in the beauty world will have something to learn from the show. Stay tuned for the 5th episode with Professor Sheppard, Reuben Carranza, Howard McLaren, and Zak Mascolo!
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By Alejandra Acuña