Product virality leads to sales. That’s proven once again by The Doux, a 12-year-old textured hair care brand founded by licensed cosmetologist Maya Smith. On TikTok, there are over 17.8 million posts related to the brand’s hero product, Moose Deaf. According to the band, more than 2 million copies of the product have been sold to date.
Smith said support from the textured hair community has been the brand’s biggest growth driver. According to the company, The Do is currently among the top five fastest growing Black-owned hair care brands.
Smith declined to disclose The Do’s revenue, but it’s the accessibility and effectiveness of The Do that has made it an eight-figure brand since launching in mass retailers in 2017. said. The company’s products range in price from $9.99 to $24.99. Since 2017, the independently owned brand has increased annual sales by 20%.
Doux first launched with its first retail partner, Target, and the following year it also entered Walmart and Sally Beauty. It was also released on Amazon in 2020. “We’re chain-wide in Surrey, and some of our SKUs are chain-wide in Target and Walmart as well. We’re not going broad, we’re going deeper,” Smith said.
Mass retailers are The Do’s largest sales channel, accounting for 60% to 70% of sales, Smith said. However, the brand is seeking luxury retail partners and is focusing on strengthening its e-commerce business this year.
“We want to balance[sales]so we are increasing our e-commerce sales by offering things like hair tools,[exclusive products]and merchandise that are only available in that channel. ,” Smith said. “Many of the companies in our category start out in OTC, beauty supply or mass retail, and then as they grow, they realize that consumers want a more personalized experience.”
Our current priority is to offer exclusive products on Amazon and branded e-commerce sites. To that end, Mr. Smith is building an e-commerce division that will manage brand assortments, intellectual property and other e-commerce responsibilities. Currently, The Doux is a team of six people.
Textured hair care is an increasingly competitive and growing category. According to AI hair personalization brand Carra, the textured hair market is worth an estimated $10 billion and is growing at an average annual rate of 5%. Approximately 65% of the U.S. population identifies with curly, coiled, or wavy hair. This year, Beyoncé and Rihanna both launched textured hair care lines. Meanwhile, Pattern Beauty, the Tracee Ellis Ross-backed textured hair care brand, celebrated its fifth anniversary, and buzzy clean and textured hair brands Briogeo and Miere celebrated their 10th anniversary.
Like its competitors in the category, The Doux has leveraged its community, but Smith says what sets her brand apart is her experience as a hairdresser, which helped her identify clear gaps in the market. He said that he has gained the ability to identify.
“The industry is changing and consumers are getting younger. She is looking for healthy hair care as well as alternative solutions such as thermal styling and bond treatments,” Smith said.
To meet demand, The Doux culminated this year with the release of Press Play, a seven-product line of thermal styling products for textured hair. All are priced at $16.99 and available at Target and The Doux’s website.
Going forward, Smith plans to invest in the stylist community, which he sees as another big growth opportunity for The Doux. Last year, The Doux rolled out an option with Cosmoprof that makes wholesale purchasing more affordable for professional consumers. Building on that momentum, Smith plans to return to her roots as a stylist with an Instagram Live and pre-recorded videos featuring hair tutorials. The Doux will also partner with popular stylists from the professional community on campaigns and social content.
“Stylists brought me here. They helped popularize[our Moose Deaf foam]. 80% of the exposure we got was from stylists. , I showed up at Target and bought six or seven Moose Defs at a time. I reconnected with the people who had supported me[from the beginning],” she said.
