What happens when you spot a major gap in the beauty industry? Just ask Meagan Pate, the co-founder behind one of Australia’s fastest growing skincare brands. But STRAAND isn’t your typical skin care, focusing instead on a part of our bodies often shunned — the scalp.
With a revolutionary range, which all began with the brand’s ‘Crown Fix’, a hardworking serum that relieves scalp stress, as well as hydrates and protects, the brand is turning the world of scalp care on its head, focusing on optimistic, inclusive formulas that makes caring for your scalp as essential as your face.
Not even a year from launch, STRAAND is already taking the local beauty industry by storm, and has already released further products into its range, including a shampoo and conditioner, exfoliating scalp scrub and viral hair gem machine. This brand is only just getting started.
Below, Pate opens up about the STRAAND journey so far, including the inspiration behind the brand, how her personal experiences played into its creation and what we can expect to see in the coming months.
“Over two years ago, the brand was born from the team’s deep understanding of the beauty category, we saw very little innovation within anti-dandruff, it felt very stagnant and disconnected from consumers. Having personally suffered from sensitive skin and dandruff, I found it really challenging to find products that suited me - from a performance, brand and values perspective. The products available felt tired, problem/solution and full of noxious chemicals/scents - I wanted something that felt like an extension of my skincare routine. Functional, and sensorial.”
“Yes, crown care/scalp care feels like a natural evolution; our understanding of ingredients, wellness and self care has become more enriched. As consumers we’re really curious about what we’re putting on our skin, how it works, how it makes us feel. For so long, the scalp was overlooked with little awareness and education about scalp health. Straand is functional scalp care, we harness the science of prebiotics to help balance the scalp microbiome - our products are designed to work with your scalp, not just blast it.”
“My whole career has been either in or adjacent to beauty, it’s been a passion (at times an obsession) since I can remember. I think my personal experience with beauty in general, not just scalp care, has really helped define the range. Anti-Dandruff as a category was so void of all the things I loved about beauty. So, we set out to change that at every touch point - from the product development, foam, scent, to cool-on the-pulse-digital branding.”
“Strategically it made sense to launch with our hero sku - The Crown Cleanse Prebiotic Shampoo. From an operations and logistics perspective, we had so many delays due to COVID, The Crown Cleanse was ready first - and we didn’t want to wait for the rest of the range before launching.”
“The range was always designed as a routine, the products can be used in isolation (and still be very effective) although they were formulated to compliment one another, with compounding performance.
“Even the accessories play a critical role in reducing “scalp stressors” - for example a microfibre hair towel removes 7 x the amount of water of a cotton hair towel - reducing hair drying time and minimising the impact of hot heat.
“The detangler comb - gently removes knots, distributes product evenly and leaves your hair detangled post shower - elevating stress so often caused from brushing wet hair with normal brushes.”
“Fun. This whole campaign came back to just wanting to have fun. After the past few years (dare I say the c-word) it felt like the perfect opportunity to inspire sparkly, nostalgic, feel-good moments. Our creative team are very on-the-pulse, we wanted all the glitter, more is more, maximalism, revenge sparkle, main character moments.
“It was also an opportunity for us to connect with creatives, creators and our community by encouraging them to participate with us.”
“The team, we’re super lucky to have such a collaborative and impressive team - they’re all very clever, motivated and have grit. Having people in your corner, on your team and working together to achieve the same goals make the world of difference.”
“Locally, we would LOVE to expand our salon offering in Australia. We’ve seen so much success with our relationship with The Blow - who offer a Straand Scalp Services - think facial for your scalp. We see salons and hairdressers as an integral part of normalising scalp health conversations.
“We are just about to launch into the US via DTC and Amazon, we’re having some really promising conversations with retailers - which we were optimistic about.
“We have our sights set on a EU/UK launch towards the middle of the year.
“Product innovation will always be a huge focus area for the brand; we’re currently formulating and hope to bring some exciting new products to the market soon.”
