Hair care is hot button in ethnic category

Drug Store News, August 2, 1999 by Andrea M. Grossman

"Textures & Tones is an entire line of products, so if a consumer uses a relaxer and likes it, she's likely to try the hair color, too," Williams said.

Regarding competition, Textures & Tones will not be going up against Diva. The Diva brand, Williams said, is aimed to combat competition from high-end brands with moisture-rich claims, and Texture & Tones will be priced more competitively.

To develop the hair color formula, Clairol enlisted the help of seven salon professionals who worked for three years to intertwine conditioning and fortifying elements to give Texture & Tones a point of difference. Ingredients include Brazilian nut oil, panthenol and wheat protein. The hair color is ammonia-free and includes 10 shades that offer 100-percent gray coverage. Two relaxer kits (in mild and regular strengths) and six hair care SKUs round out the line.

Texture & Tones will be merchandised in both the general market and ethnic sections of stores, depending upon the account. But, in most cases, the hair color will appear with brands such as ColorStay, while relaxers and oil sheens will appear in the ethnic section, Williams said.

"That would be the same strategy stores apply to Dark & Lovely and other brands," said Chris Beuter, manager for customer marketing for Texture & Tones.

Clairol stands to put the pressure on competitors regarding advertising dollars, one of the prerequisites that can make or break shelf placement or a brand's success.

"We will continue to advertise in all major ethnic books for the rest of the year. We also are looking to expand advertising to billboard and possibly television. On-shelf and account-specific promotional programs will be built in next year," Williams added.

Though Texture & Tones products have been available in B&Bs for the past year, this fall will be the first time mass gets the opportunity to merchandise the line on shelves. The decision, said Williams, was one that met with retail pressure from several chains, which wanted the product sooner.

"We had to stick to our guns since we wanted this product to go the professional route first, gain that endorsement and then go into mass," Williams said.

Subcategory to create brand trading, new consumers

Though the hair color category appears saturated with product from both general market and ethnic-specific manufacturers, Revlon is looking to create a new subcategory in ethnic hair color: highlighting. According to data by Revlon, nearly 40 percent of African-American women use hair color, and of those users, nearly 50 percent use it at home. Highlighting, in the general market arena, makes up $68 million of the overall hair color category, and the subsegment "is basically the only hair coloring process that is not available for at-home us age [for African-Americans]," said Carolyn John, marketing director for ethnic at Revlon.

The beauty care company plans to change that this year as its new brand, HiLites, the first at-home highlighting kit made especially gentle for relaxed hair, begins appearing on shelves this month. The product stands to create a subcategory within hair care, an advancement within African-American hair care that was most recently seen with Soft Sheen's anti-frizz product, Frizz Free.