The bond-repair hair-care category has some fresh competition as the “skinification of hair care” evolves.
The latest rush of products from brands like Beekman 1802, Crown Affair and Kat Burki Skincare are focused on gentle formulations that stand in opposition to the bond-repairing treatments that have dominated the category.
“It started with our community asking us for products appropriate for dry, damaged hair and a sensitive scalp,” Brad Farrell, CMO at Beekman 1802, told Glossy. “Looking at the market, we saw a white space where conventional [hair] bonders were hardening the hair shaft and making people’s hair dry, unhealthy and brittle.”
Some Reddit users have reported that bonding products can make their hair feel brittle or create a stiff, straight effect.
The bond-repair category launched in 2014 with Olaplex’s first offering and has since grown to reach $1.35 billion in 2024, according to market research company Growth Market Reports. It’s dominated by Olaplex, Unilever-owned K-18 and L’Oréal Groupe. However, according to Future Market Insights, there is a large international opportunity: North America currently holds nearly half of the market share.
Earlier this month, Beekman 1802, which is known for its skin care and body care, responded with its foray into hair care. The line includes a shampoo, conditioner and leave-in treatment powered by a protein found in the brand’s signature goat milk called A2 beta casein. It also includes traditional skin-care ingredients like collagen.
“The novel ingredient is really our proprietary Brazilian flex bond peptide that’s working together with the 18 proteins [found in goat’s milk] and the hydrolyzed collagen,” Ayesha Bshero, vp of creative and product development at Beekman 1802, told Glossy.
She described the brand’s bond technology like a suspension bridge, with the ability to bounce and move, as opposed to a traditional bridge that is sturdy and rigid and more likely to fracture or break.
The line launched on HSN last week and promptly sold out, with shampoo and conditioner sales landing 50% higher than the brand’s forecast, thanks to 400 items selling for every minute while on air, the brand told Glossy. The products, which are priced under $30 each, are backed by clinical studies that show the hair-repairing properties.
“Consumers are increasingly prioritizing long-term hair health, with 40% of hair-care users believing that products like shampoo and conditioner play a vital role,” said Carson Kitzmiller, principal analyst for U.S. beauty and personal care at Mintel market research company. “This underscores the growing demand for solution-driven formulations, even in essential, everyday products.”
According to Circana market research company, hair-care sales were up through the first half of the year, including 6% growth in prestige hair care fueled by shampoo, conditioner, treatments, and scalp-focused offerings.
Thanks to the proliferation of the bond-repair category, the average hair-care consumer is using far too many repairing products, leading to damage, said Dianna Cohen, founder of the hair-care brand Crown Affair.
“A lot of these bond and repair technologies are formulated for [professional] stylists, and the stylists send their clients home with it — but they’re not professionals, and [the clients] overuse it,” said Cohen. “The hair is a fiber so it can get really stiff, which can cause breakage, [especially when] they’re using all this keratin and protein.”
Instead, Crown Affair, which sells at Sephora, Violet Grey and Revolve, is betting on a gentle, superfood-packed alternative. “It helps actually strengthen the fiber but keeps it flexible,” Cohen said. “It goes through the cuticle and into the cortex to keep the hair hydrated, but also flexible, and strengthens to reverse stiff [results from] bond-building [products].”
Out on Monday, Crown Affair’s Overnight Repair Serum is backed by clinical studies and sells for $58 at Sephora and DTC. The formula is powered by ingredients like chia and flax seeds, which feeds into a larger trend, said Carson Kitzmiller, principal analyst for U.S. beauty and personal care at Mintel market research company.
“We’re seeing a boost in ‘herbal’ innovations showing up in hair care [like] mushrooms, rice water, ginger [and] flax seeds to support hair health propositions,” she said. “Using recognizable ingredients denotes trust in a [beauty or personal care] brand, validating that using established ingredients in skin care has value in the hair space.”
As previously reported by Glossy, there is new consumer demand for hair-care ingredients like peptides, hyaluronic acid, collagen, probiotics and stem cells in shampoo, conditioner and styling products.
Kat Burki, the founder and CEO of Kat Burki Skincare, has seen the shift in consumer demand for hair products from the brand in the past few years and believes that the consumer is only now ready for a category shift.
“I really wanted to do hair care a long time ago, but [the consumer] just wasn’t ready yet, and I would even argue to say that [shoppers] weren’t ready a year ago,” she said. “But people really are looking at it differently now.”
Now that the “skinification of hair care” has permeated the market, Burki expanded her 12-year-old skin-care line earlier this year to include its first hair-care product. The $90 hair and scalp treatment is rooted in skin-care ingredients meant to improve hair structure, promote growth and reduce shedding, thanks to extracts, peptides and vitamins.
Burki has since expanded with a shampoo and conditioner rooted in clinical studies that retail for $64 each — they sell DTC and through retailers like Shopbop and Niche Beauty. Burki told Glossy that the evolving customer is looking for gentle, clinically-proven hair-care alternatives.
“This is the same consumer [as the luxury skin-care shopper],” Burki said. “Why would that customer not want to use a hair treatment as though it were skin care?”
