Hally Is Pairing Pop Culture With Clean Ingredients to Reimagine At-home Hair Dye
The Barbiecore trend has made its way to the at-home hair-coloring game.
Preluding the July release of Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” movie starring Margot Robbie, at-home hair-color brand Hally has partnered with Mattel to launch a collection inspired by the famed doll.
More from WWD
“The idea originated from the Ulta Beauty team — they told us they were planning to do full-chain, huge displays around Barbie this summer and wanted a hair dye brand to be a part of that,” said Kathryn Winokur, who founded Hally in 2021 with a range of demi-permanent, foaming Color Cloud dyes priced at $25.
Within two months of launch, Hally entered Ulta through its Sparked platform, joining brands like Madison Reed and Arctic Fox at the retailer.
The brand has since introduced temporary hair-coloring Shade Stix, a Fluffy G hair glaze and several movie and pop culture-inspired collaborations that have sought to widen the parameters of at-home hair dyeing.
“Our biggest opportunity is to create more relevant purchase occasions within the category,” said Winokur, who collaborated with Disney’s “Hocus Pocus 2” on a collection, and in February partnered with Baylor University to release Shade Stix in the school’s yellow and green colors.
“Our litmus test in choosing what we want to do is, ‘Does this ladder up to our mission of being the first pop culture hair brand?,'” said Winokur, who said Hally crossed the seven-figure sales threshold within one year on the market, and tripled its sales in year two. Though she did not comment on sales expectations in 2023, industry sources estimate Hally could exceed $10 million in sales this year.
The brand’s bestselling stock keeping unit is its Blue Shade Stix, of which 25 are sold every hour.
“We see Shade Stix as our gateway drug, for lack of a better term: People become familiar with the brand through them and as they age up, might decide they’re ready for at-home hair color options that are a little more permanent, like Color Cloud,” Winokur said.
Launching Monday, the Hally x Barbie collection consists of pink, purple and Malibu Blue Shade Stix, $14.99 each, and corresponding hair accessories. Like all of the brand’s formulas, the products are free of ammonia, sulfates and parabens, and will be available at Ulta Beauty, Walmart and Amazon.
“[At-home hair dye] is such a premeditated purchase, because the category isn’t at the same maturation as color cosmetics or skin care — there’s a finite number of people right now who feel comfortable doing box dye at home,” said Winokur, whose mission is to lower consumers’ barrier to entry into the category.
One means to this goal has been the Hally Mobile, which conducted a 12-stop College Football Tour last season, allowing tailgaters to show their school spirit on their strands.
“Student athletes, they’re our core demographic — we know that college is a prime spot for the Hally customer,” said Winokur, who is among a growing group of founders harnessing college athletes for ambassadorships to resonate with Gen Z consumers.
The Hally Mobile will return to college campuses this fall in partnership with Too Faced, expanding its terrain to sorority rush events at The University of Alabama (which have become a widely watched sensation on TikTok since 2021), and even select stops of the final leg of Beyoncé’s ongoing “Renaissance” world tour.
Also this fall, the brand will introduce a “Trolls” collaboration to coincide with the premiere of the movie’s third installation.
“Our brand ethos has a lot of fun and levity to it, and our [collaborations] have been a natural fit — we’re not forcing hair color into a conversation where it doesn’t already exist,” Winokur said. “We’re out to build the [at-home hair-coloring] category, and education is a big part of that.”
More than 160,000 people interacted with the Hally Mobile during its fall 2022 tour; this fall, the brand aims to draw 355,000-plus visitors.
“Gen Z is very ‘show, don’t tell,’ so that’s what we’re doing,” Winokur said.
Best of WWD
