Beauty has always been a sexy consumer category — everyone wants to feel like the best version of themselves. From body balms with intoxicating scents to the search for that elusive perfect blush tone, beauty consumers can be effortlessly swayed to purchase a product that looks and feels alluring. But what about the underside of beauty; the products that remove or reduce the icky or unattractive issues no one wants to talk about, let alone admit they deal with?
Products that alleviate hygiene or skin concerns tend to fall behind in conversation — staying hidden behind stigma, shame and occasional self-loathing, rather than stepping into the spotlight like their sexy-beauty-product counterparts. Is it possible to take one of these traditionally hush-hush products — something related to dandruff and scalp care, perhaps — and turn it into an aesthetically pleasing, feel-good beauty product that enters the conversation as often as our new favourite lip shade? And if so: how can you convince consumers to talk about it?
Straand, an Australian-born scalp-care beauty brand, is facing this challenge head-on as they bring conversations of dandruff, flakes and itchiness to the forefront — turning what was once an uninspiring category into something Sephora is proud to stock on their shelves. We spoke with Meagan Pate, co-founder of Straand, to uncover how they’re re-shaping the conversation.
What’s inside the bright orange bottle?
With a product lineup that soothes and alleviates scalp concerns, from oiliness and itchiness to flakes and dandruff, Straand’s mission is simple, but disruptive: “We’re skincare for your scalp <3”. A brand that proudly boasts it is “optimistic, inclusive and free of shame”, Straand’s signature bright orange bottle introduced a new way to consider personal scalp care.
“In the very early days with Straand, there was a big education piece to be done, because unlike some other products on the market that would just fix it in an instant — almost like antibiotics, in that they kill all the bacteria, good or bad — Straand uses DEFENSCALP™. It’s a prebiotic that feeds the good bacteria so the scalp can naturally regulate and become harmonious,” Meagan explains. “But that takes time, because you’re working with the body’s natural microbiome and training it. That can take anywhere between 30 to 60 days, so there was a really big education piece that needed to be done to help gain trust with people: that Straand was a journey. It wasn’t necessarily a one-wash wonder, which we’re so often sold.”
The product was new and innovative — and the flaky-scalp conversation, even more so. Straand set out on a mission to make scalp care cool by connecting it to conversations that were already in the beauty zeitgeist.
Conscious of current market understanding
Meagan explains how Straand attached their products to concepts consumers were already familiar and comfortable with. “When we launched Straand, it was perfect timing in that consumers had a really great understanding of wellness, the microbiome, pre- and probiotics — thanks to so many of these big, incredible supplements companies that had done a lot of the hard work in educating that customer,” shares Meagan. “So the role that Straand needed to play was taking this type of wellness technology and using it in a different format — which was the scalp microbiome.”
“Because dandruff stems from the scalp microbiome, but traditionally, it was treated with noxious chemicals that would blast it, rather than working with it in a harmonious fashion. So our strategy was to draw that connection between the two. We said: hey, you know, probiotics and prebiotics are great for working with your microbiome. Did you know that your scalp also has a microbiome, your skin has a microbiome? You can use that exact same technology to balance it.”
Straand turned these concepts into recognisable and easy-to-grasp language, using phrases like ‘caring for your scalp is essential, like cleansing your face’, ’stop neglecting the skin on your head’, and ‘embrace a new beauty routine that makes you feel good from root to tip’.
“We told customers: your scalp is just a part of your body. It is skin, microbiome, and science. We used the terminology that had just entered the public domain recently, and people understood.”
How Straand knew it would land
The success of Straand’s innovation was no accident. Before launching their communication strategy, Straand analysed the conversations that had been occurring among their target audience in recent years — and gained insight into how much their customers knew about the microbiome. Without the customer’s built-in understanding, the conversation would have been much more difficult (and expensive) to have.
“Depending on the size of your business — whether or not it’s established, or if you’re in a startup or a scale-up — you need to be really conscientious about the current market understanding. You want to work it and use it as a platform to springboard from, as opposed to sometimes being overly ambitious and going in with no market understanding. That can be really great for innovation, but it can also be really challenging from a comms and marketing perspective, because you’re then left having to do all of the heavy lifting,” Meagan explains.
“We were shifting and changing a whole concept. We had to be very strategic, especially in the early days, on how we went to market.”
Bringing wellness into a clinical category
Straand’s strategy was groundbreaking in an industry that was currently cold, stale and clinical — lacking the sexy, ritualistic, sensorial thrill of typical beauty products. “The strategy for Straand was very much reframing how people looked at scalp care, and inviting them to enjoy this part of their skincare ritual.”
“If you look at where we were sitting in the market at that point, no one was doing that. Scalp care was all very clinical brands — but it was clinical to the point that they didn’t actually educate or tell you anything about the products. It was kind of like face creams 20 years ago, where some woman would just say, hey, buy this moisturizer. Customers would be like, okay, cool. You’re telling me that it would be anti-aging, I believe you.”
“Whereas now, consumers are so well-educated and well-versed and have such a deep understanding of ingredients, what they do and how they work, that you need to be very, very transparent with them — but equally help empower that self-education journey.”
“The way we approached that was by looking at the beauty journey holistically. The comms strategy formed part of that, but also the way in which we positioned and developed the product. We brought wellness practices into it — even in the way that we looked at the product formulation. Our formula is very sensorial, whereas traditionally, the scalp care category had been very functional and pharmaceutical, filled with noxious, chemical-type products.”
“So we wanted to bring the joy of a spa-like experience into the bathroom, and that’s really prevalent with things like Straand’s scents. Our scents smell like a beautiful Australian day spa, so it brings pride into the category. And we were then talking about flaky scalps in a wellness sense.”
Shifting a concept that lives within confusion
After reframing the conversation around scalp care, were issues like dandruff, itchiness and flakiness truly de-stigmatised enough to enter common conversation?
As Meagan explains: yes. “When people understand something, it really helps to remove stigma. Most often than not, I think stigma lives within spaces of confusion, where there isn’t any clarity or understanding.”
“Straand’s job was to remove that. We brought the science credentials, the wellness aspect and the beauty. And beauty is fun, you know — we treat the skin on our face with six to ten steps at any given time, and it’s something that we enjoy, it’s self-care. So we wanted to create a space for those same skincare principles and self-care rituals to exist within scalp care.”
“Until we started having these conversations, people didn’t really understand what dandruff was. So therefore, it meant it was very easy for dandruff to have stigma associated with it, because it was dry, flaky skin. People just saw it as unsexy, whereas when you broke it down a little bit more, they understood. We told them: this is your scalp microbiome. This is why the flakiness is happening. It’s not because anyone’s dirty; it’s not because anything’s unclean. It’s because of these scientific reasons. So I think that really helped.”
Glancing at the intriguing orange bottles on Sephora’s shelves, there’s no doubt Straand’s strategy was effective — and the refreshing scalp care brand is here to stay. Consumers around the world have jumped on board, welcoming the concept of skincare for the scalp with open arms: Straand is now available in the US, UK and Australia.
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Based on an interview with Meagan Pate, co-founder of Straand
Written by Taryn Rapp of Lovenote
