Innovative solutions can come from anywhere, but many times, the best ones are found in your own backyard. This is the case for two prominent Henkel brands, who became unexpected partners, and worked together to create a groundbreaking innovation for Henkel Beauty Care Hair Professional.
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LOCTITE® & PRAVANA® brands team up for Beauty breakthrough
In late 2019, Henkel Beauty Care Hair Professional’s, PRAVANA®, brand launched a game-changing new tool, called the Balayage Palette. In hair salons across North America, clients clamor for balayage, where stylists use heat and hand-painted highlights to create a natural, sun-kissed look.
Thanks to a first-ever collaboration between PRAVANA and LOCTITE®, a leading brand within Henkel’s Adhesive Technologies business, the revolutionary Balayage Palette features the LOCTITE brand’s innovative, self-regulating temperature-controlled ink technology.
A win-win for stylists and their clients, “the Balayage Palette provides even heat distribution that speeds up the lightening process without over drying,” says Dolores Alker, Head of New Product Innovations & Contract Manufacturing, Henkel Beauty Care Hair Professional, North America. “This is disruptive innovation at its best. As far as I know, there is nothing else like this in the professional beauty industry.”
Getting Warmer
For Lissette Cruz, Senior Product Development Manager, Head of Global innovations for PRAVANA International, the Balayage Palette solves a problem that has plagued hairstylists for years: how to lighten hair without over processing. When creating the Balayage Palette at Henkel’s North America Beauty Care Hair Professional Headquarters in Culver City, California, little did she know she would find an answer just down the road at the Henkel Adhesives Technologies facility in Irvine.
“New ideas don’t always spawn from staring at hair magazines. In our case, the tech industry is one we look to quite often,” says Cruz. “While I was doing personal research in the 3D circuit board arena, I came across a phrase that caught my eye: conductive ink. I quickly realized that these materials were abundant in Henkel’s LOCTITE brand portfolio.”
When the PRAVANA brand team reached out to collaborate, their LOCTITE brand colleagues quickly served up a solution: the ECI 8001 E&C warming element, featuring silver ink with carbon conductors.
Presley Poe, a leading stylist influencer, shows off the Balayage Palette, featuring the LOCTITE brand’s innovative, self-regulating temperature-controlled ink technology.
LOCTITE Lends a Hand
“Our line of PTC (Positive Temperature Coefficient) inks are designed to self-regulate and maintain a constant temperature,” says Cary Vocelka, Director – Americas Head for Printed Electronics, Adhesives, North America. He is not surprised to see the versatile product — first used widely for car seat heaters — embraced by the beauty industry. “Our customers always come up with the best use of our materials. The possibilities are endless.”
While a product launch in the beauty industry would typically take a full year or more, the launch of the Balayage Palette, which involved collaboration between PRAVANA, LOCTITE and their respective design and manufacturing partners, was completed in a mere 10 months.
“To hit the right market space at the right time, speed was really important for us. We had to be agile as a team,” notes Alker. “Everybody jumped on board to make it happen.”
The Balayage Palette proves that common ground can be found where you least expect it.
“Henkel has all these powerful brands, and when we work together, it’s a huge benefit to the company,” says Vocelka. “You may find the biggest opportunities where you thought there was nothing in common.”
