D2C Haircare Brands: Key Updates (Feb 1–14, 2025)

🚀 Key Trends & Takeaways

1. Moroccanoil Expands Into Fine Fragrance

📅 Reported: Mid-February 2025
Moroccanoil launched its first fine fragrance, L’Originale Eau de Parfum, inspired by its signature Mediterranean scent. The fragrance debuted at Sephora, travel retail, and DTC channels, with actress Adria Arjona as the face of the campaign.
💡 Why It Matters:

• Brand Diversification: Moves Moroccanoil beyond haircare and into a luxury lifestyle category.

• Leverages Existing Scent Equity: Builds on customer love for the brand’s signature scent to drive cross-category expansion.

• A Trendsetter Move: Other haircare brands may follow suit in scent-led extensions.

2. Briogeo’s New Dry Shampoo Puff Expands Nationwide

📅 Reported: February 11, 2025
Briogeo launched its Style + Treat Dry Shampoo Puff, a talc-free, aerosol-free dry shampoo applied via a cushion puff, at Ulta Beauty stores nationwide. The mess-free format prevents spills and comes in translucent and tinted versions to suit all hair colors.

💡 Why It Matters:

• A Response to Industry Disruptions: The dry shampoo category has been shaken by aerosol recalls—this clean alternative offers a safer, travel-friendly option.

• Retail Expansion as a Growth Lever: Ulta placement significantly boosts accessibility, helping Briogeo tap into a wider audience.

3. R+Co BLEU Takes Center Stage at NYFW

📅 Reported: February 2025
R+Co BLEU was backstage at New York Fashion Week F/W 2025, styling for designers like Anna Sui. The brand’s luxury styling products were used to create pin-up-inspired hairstyles matching runway aesthetics.

💡 Why It Matters:

• Luxury Haircare Meets Fashion: Aligning with NYFW cements R+Co BLEU’s status as an editorial-quality brand.

• Runway to Consumer Influence: NYFW hair trends trickle down into mainstream beauty, potentially boosting consumer interest in the brand’s styling range.

4. Ethique Expands to Ulta Nationwide

📅 Reported: February 2025
Ethique, a New Zealand-based solid beauty brand, rebranded and launched in Ulta Beauty stores across the U.S. with zero-plastic shampoo & conditioner bars.

💡 Why It Matters:

• Sustainability Goes Mass Market: The plastic-free movement is no longer niche, with major retailers now embracing it.

• Retail Validation for Indie Brands: Ethique’s Ulta expansion shows eco-conscious brands can scale into mass retail successfully.

5. Olaplex’s Winter Bonding Oil Campaign

📅 Reported: February 2025
Olaplex launched a seasonal campaign highlighting No.7 Bonding Oil as a winter haircare essential. The marketing emphasized the product’s ability to increase shine by 125% and reduce breakage by 77%, addressing seasonal hair concerns.

💡 Why It Matters:

• A Masterclass in Seasonal Marketing: Olaplex’s campaign leverages weather-related pain points to drive sales.

• Science-Backed Messaging Wins: Performance claims help Olaplex maintain its reputation as a clinically-driven brand.

📊 Top Financial Trends & News

1. Hair Care Market Set for Growth

📅 Reported: February 12, 2025
The global haircare market is projected to grow from $109.77 billion in 2025 to $138.49 billion by 2030, fueled by organic ingredients, scalp health awareness, and premiumization.

💡 Why It Matters:

• High-Growth Sector: Haircare is one of the fastest-growing beauty segments, offering opportunities for innovation.

• Premiumization is Driving Revenue: Brands investing in high-performance, clean, and personalized formulasare best positioned to win.

2. Everist Secures Investment for Retail Expansion

📅 Reported: February 8, 2025
Sustainable haircare brand Everist secured funding from Sandbridge Capital (investors in Ilia and Youth to the People) to fuel retail expansion after a profitable DTC growth year.

💡 Why It Matters:

• Investor Confidence in Sustainable Beauty: Funding signals strong belief in the scalability of low-waste, waterless products.

• Scaling Beyond DTC: Everist’s retail push suggests eco-conscious brands are now viable for big-box retailers.

🚀 What This Means for Marketers:

• Sustainability is Becoming a Retail Standard → Plastic-free and waterless haircare is no longer niche—it’s hitting mass retail shelves.

• Luxury Haircare is Growing → Editorial-quality styling brands and fragrance extensions are shaping the next wave of premiumization.

• Retail Expansion is a Key Growth Lever → Both indie and established brands are using major retail partnerships to scale.

• Personalization & Clean Innovation Remain Priorities → From dry shampoo formats to AI-driven solutions, product innovation is key to maintaining competitive edge.

These top trends reflect the evolving landscape of haircare, where sustainability, premiumization, and innovation are shaping consumer preferences and industry growth.

🔹 Advertising Strategies by Brand

1️⃣ Product Feature & Benefit-Driven Strategies:

This remains the most pervasive and arguably impactful strategy. Consumers want to know what a product does and howit will benefit them. IGK Hair and Virtue Labs are masters of this, consistently detailing specific benefits, key ingredients, and often demonstrating application. Kitsch also excels, but with a stronger focus on the eco-friendly and practical aspects of their solid shampoo bars.

Example Ads:

• IGK Hair: The Good Behavior Smoothing Spray ad explains its heat-activated, keratin-like, frizz-controlling benefits, reinforced by a demonstration + customer testimonial.

• Virtue Labs: This ad gets straight to the point, and makes a bold promise of "97% saw new hair growth."

📌 Key Takeaway: Directly and clearly communicating product benefits and addressing specific hair concerns is the foundation of effective haircare advertising. Visual demonstrations and scientific claims further enhance impact.

2️⃣ Discount & Promotion-Heavy Strategies:

IGK Hair and Kitsch stand out for their aggressive use of discounts and promotions. IGK Hair consistently offered 20% off for new customers across a multitude of ads, aiming for rapid customer acquisition. Kitsch, similarly, employed various promotions, including free gifts with purchase (like a welcome kit or soap dish) and percentage discounts (e.g., 25% off sitewide for Valentine's Day). These strategies aim to incentivize immediate purchases and build a customer base quickly. Prose also fits in here, with a 50% off for first-time order.

Example Ads:

• IGK Hair: The "New Customers save 20% with code NEWIGK" offer is a recurring element, making it a core part of their acquisition strategy.

• Prose: Your Hair, Your Goals, Our Expertise. Get real results with a custom hair care routine from Prose and claim your 50% off trial offer.🧪

📌 Key Takeaway: Haircare brands, particularly IGK Hair and Kitsch, heavily utilize discounts, promotional codes, and limited-time offers, to stimulate sales and attract price-sensitive consumers.

3️⃣ Tech-Driven Personalization Strategies:

Prose and Function of Beauty are the clear leaders here. Their entire advertising approach revolves around the concept of customized hair care. Prose's ads consistently direct users to an online consultation (quiz) to create personalized formulas. Function of Beauty, while also offering customization, emphasizes "booster shots" that can be added to their base shampoos and conditioners to target specific concerns.

Example Ads:

• Prose: "Your unique hair, our custom solutions. Claim your trial offer and unlock hair's full potential with Prose... Take the consultation to get your custom routine." The ad copy and video content focus entirely on personalization.

• Function of Beauty: "Boost Your Mousse" - Customize their mousse with "shine" and "anti-frizz" boosters.

📌 Key Takeaway: Personalization is a highly impactful strategy, tapping into the consumer desire for tailored solutions. Prose takes a more comprehensive approach to customization, while Function of Beauty offers a modular, "add-on" style of personalization.

4️⃣ Customer Testimonials & Social Proof:

While many brands included customer quotes, Prose and Kitsch integrated them most effectively. Prose often features video testimonials from real users, detailing their hair concerns and positive experiences with the customized formulas. Kitsch frequently uses short, impactful quotes from satisfied customers in their ad copy, often paired with star ratings.

Example Ads:

• Prose (2025-02-12): This video ad features a customer sharing her journey with frizzy, wavy hair and how Prose transformed it, emphasizing the personalized approach.

• Kitsch (2025-02-03): "⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'I absolutely love my new shampoo and conditioner, my hair is so much softer and I can now wait 3 days between washes. I fully recommend xx' -Gitte." This integrates a customer quote directly into the ad copy.

📌 Key Takeaway: Leveraging authentic customer voices and showcasing real results builds trust and credibility, making potential buyers more likely to consider the product.

5. Comparison Ads:

• Virtue Labs: compared itself to competitors and how the brand is superior to others.

  Example Ads:

  • Virtue Labs (2025-02-11): Showcase of the comparative benefits of each product line.

Directly addressing and discrediting the competition and comparison is a good way to promote the product.

🔹 Ad Formats: Video, Image, or Carousel?

• Video Dominates: The provided data overwhelmingly favors video ads. Brands like IGK Hair, Kitsch, Virtue Labs, Prose, Function of Beauty, and amika: consistently used video to demonstrate product usage, showcase results, and feature testimonials. This format allows for a more engaging and dynamic presentation of the product's benefits.

• Images for Concise Messaging: Static image ads were primarily used for direct product showcases (often with pricing or promotional details) or to highlight specific offers. Brands like Olaplex, R+Co, and Blake Brown Beauty used image ads effectively for these purposes.

📌 Key Takeaway:

• Video is essential for effective haircare advertising. It allows for a level of engagement and demonstration that static images cannot match. The visual nature of hair care (showing texture, shine, application) makes video particularly powerful.

• Image ads are strategically used for concise messaging, like sales promotions or simple product introductions.

💯 Best-Performing Organic Posts

1️⃣  Gisou (@gisou) - Product Launch + Influencer Content

• Date: 2025-02-06

• Engagement: 34,300 likes, 491 comments

• Strategy: Product Launch, Bundling, Holiday Tie-in

• Why It Worked? New product launch (Soothe & Smooth Duo Comb) combined with existing popular products in limited-time Valentine's Day bundles. The high engagement suggests strong interest in new products and bundled deals, plus Gisou's strong following.

2️⃣  Kitsch (@mykitsch) - Giveaway + Collaboration

• Date: 2025-02-10

• Engagement: 5238 likes, 2009 comments

• Strategy: Giveaway, Co-branding (with Simple Modern), Valentine's Day Theme.

• Why It Worked? Giveaways are inherently engaging. The collaboration with another brand (Simple Modern) broadened the reach, and the Valentine's Day theme was timely. The high comment count is directly attributable to the entry requirements.

3️⃣ Moroccanoil (@moroccanoil) - Influencer/Partner Collaboration

• Date: 2025-02-05

• Engagement: 11100 likes, 68 comments

• Strategy: Influencer/Partner Collaboration

• Why it Worked?: The ad showcases partnership with @dimitrishair and promotes Moroccan oil.

4️⃣ Ouai (@theouai) - Product Feature + Lifestyle

• Date: 2025-02-03

• Engagement: 2052 likes, 30 comments

• Strategy: Product Feature Post, How-to.

• Why It Worked? This post showcases Ouai wave spray. It used real-life setting and the caption highlights the product's benifit.

5️⃣ Crown Affair (@crownaffair) - Behind-the-Scenes/Product Teaser

• Date: 2025-02-06

• Engagement: 1477 likes, 29 comments

• Strategy: Cause-Driven or Behind-the-Scenes Story

• Why It Worked? Showed a "mood board" for The Black Towel, giving a glimpse into the design process. This creates a feeling of exclusivity and insider knowledge, which can be very engaging for brand enthusiasts.

Key Observations:

• Brand Strength Matters: Gisou's high like count, even without a giveaway, points to a strong brand following and highly desirable products.

• Engagement Isn't Just Likes: While Kitsch's giveaway posts dominate in quantity of engagement (comments), the other posts show that a strong concept and good visuals can still drive significant interaction (likes).

• Relevance is Crucial: Tying content to current events (Valentine's Day, Super Bowl) or trending aesthetics (like "clean girl" or "coastal grandmother") helps posts resonate.

• Call to actions: Different call to actions for different content strategies helped the viewer engagement.