Attentive drugstore shoppers have known their products for five years. They stand out optically from the stunning wealth of shampoos, conditioners and styling sprays: narrow bottles with a colorful flower design and a round logo on which the brand name is written in black uppercase letters on a white background: long-haired girl. If you take a closer look, you will see the two small consonants above the circle from Germany’s drugstore chain with the highest turnover: dm. Behind the brand are two women with dark blonde, actually long hair.
They are Ramona, called Mona, Mayr and Julia Schindelmann. One is 33, the other 34 years old and recently a mother. The two have been out of their girlhood for a while. But girls can also be a synonym for a certain type of woman that you usually meet in association with others: forever young, emotional and always wordy mutually reinforcing each other.
Mayr and Schindelmann are master hairdressers and stylists who entered into an exclusive deal with dm and thus became entrepreneurs. Now they can also call themselves authors. Their book (Malia Verlag) is about to be published, in which they tell how it all came about.
Even before their work is officially available in bookstores, the two invited to a so-called launch party on a Monday afternoon in Munich’s long-haired girl salon. The shop is in the best area of Schwabing’s old buildings, where the rents are as dizzying as three Aperol Sprizz in a row. Large window fronts, matt green armchairs, floral decorations and dream catchers. You instantly step into a world of your own. The guests stand close together, there are drinks in which berries sparkle. Friendly employees hover among all the people, attentively taking off their coats, offering drinks and a badge with their first name on it. They wear floor-length cotton dresses with wide skirts in an ethnic pattern. This is how people dress for the beach bar in southern Europe, for example on Mallorca, where Schindelmann now lives with his husband and small daughter. Or on the hippie beaches in northern Australia, where Mayr took a break from everyday hairdressing. In 2014, she drove through the country in a bus, when Schindelmann visited her, the idea of the long-haired girl product brand was born there.
The two, who sat in front of mirrors that Monday, tugged at their maxi outfits and repeatedly at their hair. Constant laughter, many words, the announcement of tears, which then sit in the corners of the eyes but don’t flow. They say they are nervous. That seems honest, understandable – and feminine. She can hardly believe what happened, says Schindelmann. “We sky-bimbel from the country.” She comes from a place near Würzburg. The two met as colleagues at a hairdresser in Munich.
“We sky-bimbel from the country.”
(Photo: Daniel Trautwein/oh)
Next to the new authors sits Laura Malina Seiler, phenotypically appropriate, with long hair and a long cape. She accompanied them on their way. The 36-year-old is a blogger, coach and author of bestsellers such as “Back to me” or “Nice that you exist”. In the foreword to the book she praises the friendship with Mayr and Schindelmann, their energy and love, spirituality and perseverance. Magic words from representatives of the start-up generation who do not have the Tech-Dax in mind, but an idea of what everyday work as their own boss can look like. In the course of the afternoon, Seiler invites you to a “courage meditation”. Courage, this word comes up again and again. “Courage is the new beauty” is the name of the book, based on an idea by Mayr.
The motivation for the entrepreneurship of the two women was the experiences from their previous jobs. They write that some employers feel they have been exploited and seen too little. The low wages in the hairdressing trade probably also damaged self-esteem. The desire for hair and hairstyles has remained with them. The collaboration with the group began at the Glow beauty fair, for which dm booked them as stylists in 2017. A year later, the first products were on the shelves. There are now 30 different ones, produced in Germany and Switzerland. Closely in consultation with the two women, some of them tested in their salon, explains a spokeswoman from the dm headquarters in Karlsruhe. She does not give any sales figures. Says only this much: The brand is developing very positively.
“You can doubt yourself and still be incredibly strong”
In Mayr and Schindelmann’s book and in the salon you come across a lot of motivation booster sentences. When washing their hair, the customers can read on the ceiling decoration: “You can doubt yourself and still be incredibly strong”. On that Monday afternoon in Schwabing, a lot of doer energy shimmered through the air. The story of the long-haired girl reads like a fairy tale that doesn’t end with a princely wedding. In front of the door of the salon is a conspicuously large, white-primed vehicle decorated in the typical floral design. The women converted the former school bus from the USA into a “styling bus”. They love to make themselves and others beautiful, inside and out.