Behind the scenes at the 2025 Aveda Hair Congress

The 2025 Aveda Beauty Congress was an absolute feast for the eyes. Amidst the Midwest humidity, four days of over-the-top displays of hair innovation took place in Minneapolis, Minnesota, bringing the hair industry’s brightest minds to inspire and educate global hair professionals across the US from August 16 to 19. Each hair artist brought their interpretation of futuristic beauty, wherein they offered glimpses of a forward-thinking industry of their own design. There were robot dogs, live head-shaving, sky-high blowouts, product unveilings and no shortage of boundary-pushing beauty to look at.

Ahead of the events, Dazed got an up-close peek behind the curtain at the artists’ teams working on their creations. There, eyebrows were bleached and scalps were braided down with precision, Allen Ruiz and Luis Gonzalez’s team sculpted hair extensions into art pieces, and Antoinette Beenders gave an in-depth walkthrough of her show’s concept, which included her team’s intricate dyeing methods, not-yet-unveiled products and Mugler wardrobe. 

For those of you who didn’t make the Midwest journey, here’s what went down.

Aveda has a history of ensuring its environmental impact targets harm reduction and regeneration. That includes honouring the stewards of the land, namely the Yawanawá people of Brazil’s Amazon region. Sunday morning, before the presentations and product demos, Chief Tashka and his wife, Laura Yawanawá, offered a traditional welcome to ground the sequence of events and highlight the 30+ year partnership between the company and tribe.

You could never truly anticipate what the world-renowned hair artists at the Aveda Beauty Congress would bring to the stage. On Sunday, Charlie Le Mindu transformed the convention centre into a cinematic mad lab of sorts, while Masa Honda’s Monday presentation likened the creation of hair to that of the natural world, centring cellular regeneration through sculptural dest-block-17signs. Jawara emphasised the elevated beauty in textured hair, Greta Coston brought vibrancy to the stage and Sylvestre Finold’s Congress debut introduced the audience to avant-garde wigs that left them aweing in amazement.

Between the jam-packed schedule, attendees could also pop into the ‘experience area’, which offered sensory-activating booths displaying Aveda’s formulas and technologies. At the heart of the experience layout was the demo stage, which saw a slew of professionals executing live techniques while conducting pointed Q&As. Guests could conduct smell tests, learn about the science behind scalp health and even take a beat from the sights in the Aroma Dome.

When creativity strikes, beauty pros answer. Chatting with the Pyure Team’s artists mid-styling session, I learned that their model, Tomas Valdes, was plucked from the local market the evening prior. Spotted on an escalator, they asked him to be a hair model, so he cleared his weekend plans, allowed them to chop his long dark locs, and left with fiery red layers (and yes, for those curious, he is an Aquarius).

Considering all the talk of moving the industry forward, this year Aveda filled its lineup with as much education as it did art. Impassioned artists such as Tracy Freeman, Tiffany Quick and Naomi Dove of the Aveda Texture Team, alumni honoree Tatum Neill, and Butchers Salon owners Katie and Susannah used their work as an example of living an inclusive, intentional mission through continued action and education. Having been in the industry for decades, Freeman, Quick and Dove said they each have witnessed the steady progress of textured hair inclusion in salons and curriculum, with students coming up in the industry today having a genuine curiosity for learning about all hair types.

According to Shane Wolf, President, Aveda & Hair Care, his favourite element of the weekend was simple: the ‘oneness’. “Aveda means knowledge of the whole,” he says. “The hairdressing community at the core of our network are extremely passionate and committed people.” Antoinette Beenders, Senior Vice President of Global Artistry, says the most important element for her was to highlight the “recallibration” of the brand, spearheaded by the hairstylists who drive the products. Being there, it was abundantly clear that the mission of the weekend was to pour into the everyday hairdressers that Aveda has so much reverence for, and highlight the innovation they have to offer.

Probably the longest queue of the weekend (just ahead of the merch, which all but sold out) was the line for aura photographs. On each day, guests waited for upwards of an hour to receive their energy analyses. And they did so eagerly. 

For more of the weekend’s artful happenings, check out the gallery above.