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Dove slammed after it cancels redhead model
Sunday February 6th 2005
LARA BRADLEY

WHEN soap company Dove launched its new international ad campaign, critics hailed the choice of models, including elderly and plump women, as reflecting real life.

But the company has been attacked for its decision to drop the one woman with classic Celtic looks - a redhead - from its Irish advertising campaign celebrating "real beauty".

And famous redheads, including RTE's Blathnaid Ni Chofaigh who presents The Afternoon Show, believe the decision is a 'cynical' and insulting move because the company thinks redheads are too common.

Across Britain and the US, a beautiful redhead beams down from billboards proudly displaying her mane of red hair and her pale, freckled skin. The public is asked to log on to the Dove website and vote on whether her freckles are "beauty spots or ugly spots?" and whether she is "flawed or flawless?"

But in Ireland, where 10 per cent of the population are natural redheads, ad executives decided to drop the freckled beauty and feature just five women rather than the six used in other countries.

Dove's brand manager in Ireland Kevin Friel said: "There's six in the UK. We settled on five to give equal weight to them all. We didn't want to use six as it would have been sending out too many messages. We chose the women on the basis of their personalities and the importance of their messages. We used them to symbolically expose stereotypes.

"Not all Irish people have red hair and freckles and we felt there were bigger issues."

Dove describes their latest ad blitz as a 'Campaign for Real Beauty'. But far from encouraging a wider interpretation of beauty, Irish redheads lambasted the soap company accusing it of "not keeping it real" by dropping the fair-skinned red-head from its Irish campaign, while others asked "what's wrong with red hair and freckles anyway?"

RTE television star Blathnaid Ni Chofaigh said: "I am cynical and wary about the decision not to include the redhead. They can say it is a stage Irish look, but the reality is that red hair and pale skin is an Irish look.

"I wonder if the truth is that they didn't include her because it is too common a look here. They are in a dangerous place and risk insulting a lot of people through this.

"It would have been very helpful to have included her and sent out a positive message to young Irish redheads.

"As a redhead, I got teased growing up and I would have loved a tan. There is no point in pretending I haven't felt that I didn't deserve to be regarded as pretty, but then I went abroad and people went ga-ga for my hair and pale skin. There are a lot of advantages to being a redhead."

The redhead featured in the ads - which appear internationally, but not in Ireland - is 22-year-old Leah Sheehan from London.

The 5ft 7in single woman is an auction co-ordinator.

Ms Sheehan said: "I think this campaign is really good because it takes into account so many different types of image and age groups, skin tone, hair type and colour, body shapes and sizes.

"I have long red hair and am covered in freckles. I have always been completely comfortable with the way I look."

Instead of Leah, Dove has featured Sammy Frost - a woman who suffers from the hair-loss condition alopecia - on billboards.

The only opportunity people in Ireland have to see Leah is in glossy magazines, on the internet - and here.

Internet results last night showed 34,101 people thought Leah's freckles were "ugly spots" compared to 89,736 who described them as "beauty spots".