Pics of real haircuts help consumers find a salon

Fashion & Beauty Published on 12 May 2009 in Fashion & Beauty

People like knowing what they're getting before they open their wallets. For those looking to get a new haircut, MopShots offers an online lookbook of real cuts on real people, with details on the salons that created them.

Snapshots can be submitted by anyone (including hairstylists showing off their latest work), but not every photo is accepted. Before being featured on MopShots, photos are approved by the website's 'Dictators'—a group of 25 fashion bloggers, stylists and tastemakers. Engaging users as they contribute, and commenting on each cut, the Dictators look for models with character rather than ones cut from a glamour magazine. MopShots stresses that its curators aren’t sponsored by hairdressers or hair product companies.

Each hairstyle has its own page with up to four photos, and lists the name and location of the salon. Styles are searchable by hair colour, type, style, length or salon. The site works both as inspiration for people looking for a new style, as well as those seeking a salon based on its real-world results. Which makes sense, given that the site was created by web veteran Citysearch, which is battling Yelp for domination of the local business search arena. One to copy to other service industries? (Related: Hotel search: video completes the pictureMapping restaurants by photos of their dishes.)

Website: www.mopshots.com
Contact: www.mopshots.com/contact

Spotted by: Judy McRae

Update: following Mopshots, Citysearch has launched lookbooks for four other categories: Sugar Bomber (make sweets, not war), 3 Buck Bites (cheap eats for food lovers), Lucky Toes (where'd you get those shoes?) and Veggie Thing (vegan eats for food lovers).

Comments on this idea:

Hi Judy,
Thanks for spotting and mentioning Mopshots, as well as truly understanding what the site is about! Mopshots was the first of our niche interest lookbooks by Citysearch. After launching the site in February, we launched luckytoes.com for shoes, 3buckbites.com for food deals $3.99 and under, sugarbomber.com for sweets, and last week, we launched veggiething.com for vegan food.

All of these lookbooks have a "curated" experience with a group of avid bloggers (our "Dictators") that select their favorite items and provide comments as to why that particular item, whether it's a hairstyle, food dish or shoe, is so great.

We're glad you enjoyed Mopshots. We love that others are finding it useful as well!

Best,
Angeline
Citysearch's Social Media & Community Editor

Thanks for letting us know about the other lookbooks, Angeline! I'll add those to the post.

About Springwise

Springwise and its network of 8,000 spotters scan the globe for smart new business ideas, delivering instant inspiration to entrepreneurial minds.
Time to start the next big thing!

Free newsletter

Don't miss a single
new business idea:
sign up for our
weekly newsletter.

Next issue due
10 February 2010.

You can also subscribe to our RSS feed.

Or follow us on