Curly and textured hair-care brand Pattern Beauty is venturing into the direct-to-stylist professional channel.
On Aug. 2, the 4-year-old brand announced it is expanding its omnichannel distribution via professional salons, opening up the buzzy hair-care brand to a new revenue channel and bridging the gap between professional services and textured-hair customers. Pattern is also sold through retailers including Sephora and Ulta Beauty. The brand is not releasing the initial number of salon accounts. Amy Elisa Jackson, vp of global marketing at Pattern Beauty, also declined to share revenue or growth figures for Pattern.
“We’ve always known that stylists and salons have been safe spaces for nurturing beauty. Stylists are who we confide in and who we trust to transform. Stylists see the vision even before it’s realized,” said Jackson. “We wanted to continue to provide a personalized relationship to our community by going direct to stylists.”
According to McKinsey, Black customers spent $6.6 billion on beauty in 2021. That’s 11.1% of the total U.S. beauty market and just behind the 12.4% Black representation in the total U.S. population. Furthermore, Black consumers are three times more likely to be dissatisfied with their hair-care, skin-care and makeup options, compared to non-Black consumers. In 2020, Tresemmé released a survey on hair bias, revealing a training gap for stylists regarding textured hair, which tends to create a salon atmosphere that makes Black women and customers with textured hair feel uncomfortable and underserved.
Tracee Ellis Ross, founder and CEO of Pattern Beauty, recalled that the beauty advertisements of her childhood offered help for curly hair but didn’t do what they promised for her type of curly hair.
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“The marketing for hair products didn’t reflect images that looked like me, nor did the products provide what my curly and coily hair needed,” she said, according to the McKinsey report.
Pattern is not the only brand to offer a direct-to-stylist approach, but it does appear to be an underdeveloped approach to the professional channel. In May 2022, L Catterton-backed Beauty Industry Group acquired the Bellami Hair extensions brand, which notably offers a direct-to-stylist engagement approach. Brands found in salons are typically sold to salon owners through third-party distributors.
Pattern will provide in-person and virtual on-demand training to stylists, as part of its direct-to-stylist approach. However, training sessions are not required to become a Pattern beauty pro salon. Salons can access a discount of up to 40% on select products, putting the program on par with professional wholesale distribution. Pattern has approximately 50 SKUs in its portfolio.
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Pattern established a new Instagram account, @PatternBeautyPro, for ongoing social communication, and its new sales team is also doing direct outreach to salons. Pattern has 30 employees, but Jackson declined to state the size of the professional channel sales team.
“Our mission has always been to exceed the beauty needs of the curly, coily and tight-textured community. And part of that is supporting stylists and salons in doing the same,” said Jackson.
