A Deep-Dive Into Customizable Hair-Care Products

Gone are the days of a one-size-fits-all approach to beauty, especially when it comes to hair. Whether you’re dealing with frizz, damage, thinning or any other hair-related qualm, customizable products can help you rewrite the narrative on your hair story.

Featured Experts

• Eric Delapenha is founder of The Hair Lab by Strands
• Marie Mignon is the chief scientific officer at Prose
• Anna Chacon, MD is a board-certified dermatologist in Miami

Customized or Personalized?

The option to personalize beauty products is nothing new, but customization is a whole different game. For founder of The Hair Lab by Strands, Eric Delapenha, the journey to truly customizable hair care goes deeper than picking a color or adding a favorite scent. “With The Hair Lab, we wanted to create products that actually understand your hair biology and remove the guesswork around solutions for hair problems.”

For customized hair- and skin-care brand Prose, AI plays a large role in ensuring that formulas are not just personal, but also distinctly tailored. “We make customized hair care more accessible and available at scale thanks to our unique way of leveraging AI,” explains Marie Mignon, chief scientific officer at Prose. “Our unique tech- and data-driven approach allows us to hone in on one of millions of combinations to meet each customer’s unique needs.”

Shampoo Science: Less Guesswork, More Genetics

The science behind why a shampoo or conditioner does or doesn’t work for you is deeper than one might think. As master hairstylist Paul Labrecque explains, “Lipids, moisture and protein are the main components of shampoo and conditioner. The frizzier your hair, the higher the lipid content should be in your products to help add in more weight and tame frizz.” Miami dermatologist Anna Chacon, MD adds that our hair reacts differently to various products due to individual differences in scalp health, hair type and the unique composition of each product. When it comes to customized formulas, Dr. Chacon says “the science of the scalp is crucial because a healthy scalp provides the optimal environment for hair growth and overall hair health. Factors like scalp pH, sebum production and the presence of microorganisms can greatly impact how well hair products work.”

As Delapenha explains, understanding the biology of our hair is integral to pinpointing our needs and creating effective, customized formulas. “For example, when we [The Hair Lab] launched our UV Shield Dose Set, we did so based off extensive research that revealed that UV exposure damages the cuticle structures within our hair. We’re really trying to change the paradigm of how people approach customization in hair care. It’s not just about a pretty bottle anymore.”

How to Customize Your Hair Care

Nowadays, brands like Prose, The Hair Lab by Strands and Function of Beauty are redefining the parameters for creating customized hair care. Instead of issuing generic surveys, they are delving deeper into the science to get to the root of our hair concerns.

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Prose

“Core to our model is the online consultation, where customers share more than 85 key factors about their hair, lifestyle, diet and climate,” says Mignon. “Our science team has built proprietary algorithms that turn this data into personalized product recommendations and formulas. Then, they determine the right blend of active ingredients to best address each person’s concerns. Beyond the initial consultation, there’s a direct feedback loop through the Review & Refine feature, which allows users to provide direct input on their formulas, thus always improving results.”

Prose’s Custom Hair Oil has long been beloved by its curly- and coily-haired users, and its recent reformulation has made it even more versatile. Now, it caters to a wider variety of hair types, thanks to its newly introduced lead oil that varies from rich to ultralight to address different hair needs.

• BUY NOW – $48

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The Hair Lab by Strands

These customized formulas start with a simple two-minute, virtual diagnostic. “The Hair Lab was built on the foundation of the biological dataset accumulated with our Strands Hair Test Kits, where customers send hair samples to our lab for an in-depth analysis,” Delapenha says. “Leveraging this data, we developed the rules and weights of our Hair Lab algorithm to ensure our customers get real insights into their hair biology.” Upon completion, the brand recommends a customized lineup of shampoo, conditioner, leave-in conditioner, and any of its 12 doses (small vials of super-specific, concentrated formulas to mix into your products).

The Hair Lab by Strands has long been known for its dose sets that hyper-customize your shampoo and conditioner, but the brand’s most recent innovation, Scalp Serums and Scalp Doses, combine to create first-to-market, fully customizable scalp-care products aimed at addressing any and all scalp needs, from dryness to excess oil, and even supported hair growth.

• BUY SERUMS – $11
• BUY DOSES – $3.50

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Function of Beauty

“We like to call ourselves beauty rule breakers,” says the brand’s chief marketing officer Marianna Trofimova. “Started out of MIT, our three founders combined their expertise in sustainability, engineering, data science and formulation to become the first custom beauty company on the market. To bring this vision to life, a state-of-the-art, first-of-its-kind facility was built from the ground up in Pennsylvania, where all of the equipment was designed to allow for the maximum level of customization. It is built and coded in-house for made-to-order products at scale.”

Fighting hair damage is one of the most difficult tasks in the world of hair care. Function of Beauty’s SOS (Save Our Strands) collection of customizable damage-repair products features patent-pending Biotech Bond-Repair Technology. Plus, the brand’s unique hair quiz will help you tailor your formula to your exact level of damage and hair needs.

• BUY SOS SHAMPOO – $32
• BUY SOS MASK – $38