Influencer Ashlee West, who has over 1M followers on Instagram and over 1.8M followers on TikTok, was approached by the brand back in January 2024 with the potential opportunity to help promote the launch. In March, Ashlee received the good news that Fenty Beauty, who she has partnered with on social campaigns in the past, had officially hand-picked her to participate in an exclusive shoot in LA for the launch of Fenty Hair!
For the photoshoot, Ashlee’s hair makeup was done by none other than makeup artist Jasmin Winnie Stephen and hair artist Dharius Thomas, who both happen to be Rihanna’s personal hair and makeup artists, helping to ensure that Rihanna’s magical creative touch was present from A-Z at the shoot.
The content from the photoshoot was going to be used for one year worldwide on the brand’s website, their digital advertising, and across multiple social media accounts, including that of Rihanna, Fenty Beauty, Fenty Skin, and all of their affiliated retails, such as, but not limited to, Sephora, Harvey Nicholas, Boots, Tmall International, DFS, Lotte, Shilla, and Shinsegae.
Following the photoshoot, the Fenty Beauty team reached back out to invite Ashlee to an event in LA on June 10th to celebrate the launch of Fenty Hair.
“Two of my favorite moments from the event [were] meeting the influencers from my agency and really connecting with them, and my absolute top one would have to be seeing the pictures of myself on the wall from the Fenty Hair photoshoot. Totally unexpected, surreal to this date, and took me by such a surprise!” Ashlee says about the event.
At the event, Ashlee had the special opportunity to meet Rihanna! “[Although the] conversation was short, it felt so natural. I’ll never forget her absolutely adoring [the] hairstyle I did for the Fenty Hair launch party, her saying my hair was “absolutely stunning” sticks with me because hair is what I do and love. Rihanna was so friendly. Her energy when you first talk to her is so caring and you can just see how genuine and true to herself she is. This experience made me overall grateful and in awe that I get to be in these spaces,” says Ashlee about her interaction with Rihanna. See them connecting for the first time HERE!
For anyone who hasn’t yet had a chance to try this new launch, Ashlee gave us the low-down on what she really thinks: “I’ve tried the whole line and I [honestly] loved [all the products]. You don’t really get a lot of good hair products when it comes to celebrity brands, so it’s nice that Rihanna really took her time with this line. [She] really made it for the curly girls because we need better products on the market and this is definitely a good line for that. My favorite product would have to be “The Gelly Type Strong Hold Gel” because it's versatile. You can use it as a leave-in gel or to really slick your hair back, and not to mention it just smells amazing.” Check out Ashlee testing out the products HERE.
Looks like we need to follow Ashlee's lead and start filling up our online shopping carts with Fenty Hair!
