Women's shaving label rebrands as FFS after ad watchdog ruling

By

Barbara Santamaria

Published
Jul 6, 2020

Direct-to-consumer women’s shaving brand FFS has evolved its brand identity and positioning after receiving a warning from the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).

FFS, formerly known as Friction Free Shaving, has introduced a new logo and visual scheme to distance itself from its original name.

The name change comes after Procter & Gamble, the global leader in shaving products, filed a complaint with the ASA over the startup’s “friction free” claim. Arguing that the use of these words was misleading because it is not possible to reduce friction to zero when shaving, P&G challenged an ad from Friction Free Shaving.

In January, the ad watchdog agreed that consumers were likely to understand that the use of “friction free” in the company’s name could mean its products ensured a shave that would be completely free from friction, and therefore without the negative aspects of shaving, such as skin irritation, shaving rash and cuts.

According to a report in advertising industry trade paper Campaign, FFS’s new identity has been designed by London-based agency Free the Birds and it includes a new tagline: “Beauty should be effortless”. 

Des McManus, MD of FFS Beauty said: “When we launched the brand back in 2015 it was about rebellion and shaking-up the tired and often overlooked women’s shaving category with an irreverent, raised eyebrow. 

“Five years on, and proud of all that we have achieved, it felt like the right time to refresh and showcase how we’ve evolved. The new FFS Beauty name, look and feel reflects our growth into a more sophisticated, conscious and contemporary brand, but one that remains committed to disrupting the wider beauty industry without taking itself too seriously.”

In 2018, FFS was the first brand in the world to show a woman shaving real leg and underarm hair in a TV ad, a practice that has become more common across the hair removal industry since then.