Exploring The Personalization of Hair Care

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Bespoke beauty has been all the rage the last few years, with consumers scooping up personalized makeup kits, skincare products, and even personalized vitamins. But now the personalization trend has hit another market – hair care.

Hair care is increasingly important to consumers and the numbers prove it. The global hair care market is expected to hit $116.33 billion USD by 2024, at a CAGR of 3.35% during the next five years, according to new market research, and the personalization trend is playing a huge part in this growth.

With a focus on providing unique consumer experiences, reducing decision fatigue, and servicing specific ethical concerns, personalized hair care products are scoring sizable sales with consumers – and heating up the global hair care market.

The ins and outs of individualized hair care 

A new slew of hair care companies have tapped into the personalization trend by offering shampoos, conditioners, and hair treatments that are formulated to a consumer’s specific needs. 

Typically, these personalized hair care companies have consumers fill out online surveys about everything from their hair texture, frequency of hot tools usage, hair complaints, and even lifestyle habits. Once the survey is received and reviewed, customized formulations are created based on the information. A few weeks later, consumers receive their personalized shampoo, conditioner, and other hair care products in the mail, and can begin their customized hair care routine.

Personalization prevails

The appeal of personalized hair care products is easy to see. Bespoke products speak to the prevailing ethos that every consumer – and every head of hair – is unique, special, and thus deserving of unique, special products not just found at the drug store. 

“Because everyone’s hair has different needs, however, making a one-shampoo-to-rule-them-all company wouldn’t work in the same way it has for Millennial-friendly brands of mattresses or suitcases, which distill broad, confusing product categories down to a single product they promise is the best. That’s where personalization comes in,” writes Amanda Hull for The Atlantic.

Plus, bespoke hair care promises to not only fix a consumer’s most irritating hair annoyances, like split ends or frizziness, but also to improve the appearance of hair. For those seeking the “best hair of their life” bespoke hair care promises to be a magic bullet.

Moving away from trial-and-error

Consumers are responding to personalized hair care as a way to reduce their overall product purchasing.

Additionally, consumers are also responding to personalized hair care as a way to reduce their overall product purchasing.

Often, hair care products target a single need, like brittle ends or a fine texture, while many consumers feel they have a multitude of hair issues and needs. Personalized products circumvent this problem, by offering formulations that can deal with a wide range of hair issues.

“There are so many different hair needs and a lot of trial and error and switching to satisfy them all,” Lauren Vaynberg, associate planning director for the Burns Group, said in an interview with AdWeek. “Mass hair-care brands today have different products dedicated to each of those benefits, so it forces you to make a choice and it leaves those other needs unsatisfied.”

Instead of ping-ponging between lots of different products, personalized hair care helps consumers cut down on purchasing and streamlines their hair care routines.

Ethical sensitivity

Finally, the rise of personalized hair care can be linked to the movement’s sensitivity towards consumer ethical values. Many personalized hair care brands offer options for shoppers to opt out of common ingredients like fragrance, oils, or animal by-products in their shampoo or conditioner. This form of opting out gives consumers with allergies or ethical sensitivities more options – and more satisfaction with their personalized hair care experience.

Whether a consumer is vegan, “clean,” or just feels their needs aren’t being met by traditional hair care products, personalized shampoos, conditioners, and hair treatments offer an attractive option for putting a new purchase in line with a consumer’s morality.

As more consumers seek out personalized solutions to their hair care needs, formulators can tap into this bespoke trend by offering mix-and-match hair care products that target common hair woes and deliver on the promise of providing the best, most personalized curls, waves, or straight locks around.

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