Nearly six months after hiring co-CEO Christiane Pendarvis, 4-year-old hair-care brand Pattern Beauty is expanding its heated styling tools category.
Partly owned by consumer brand incubator Beach House Group, which has also built buzzy brands Béis and Florence by Mills, Pattern Beauty first entered the market in 2019. The brand launched with eight products, including shampoos, conditioners and hair serums. It first entered the heated tools category with the launch of a blow dryer, which retails for $189, in January 2023.
On the evening of March 19, Pattern Beauty released an ad campaign for its Interchangeable curling iron across its social media platforms. The campaign, which includes both video and photo elements, features co-CEO Tracee Ellis Ross alongside models with a variety of hair textures to show all the hairstyles that can be achieved with the iron. The same night, Pattern Beauty also hosted an IRL event in New York for editors to test out the product. Ross said additional in-person events, to promote the product to the brand’s larger consumer base, are in the works.
“Visual language is one of the ways that we communicate with our customers and create the confidence that what we promise is true — that we are centered around the celebration of Black beauty and are a company that exceeds the needs of the curly, coily and tight-texture community,” said Ross.
The iron, which retails for $249, comes with three tourmaline ceramic clip barrels: a three-eighths-inch barrel for tight curls, a three-fourths-inch barrel for defined curls and a one-inch barrel for classic curls. It heats up in 30 seconds and integrates a twist-unlock and lock interchangeable mechanism. The curling iron will first be available for purchase via Pattern Beauty’s e-commerce site, before rolling out to Ulta Beauty locations and online in April.
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“The curling iron has been my secret weapon since [I was on the TV show] ‘Girlfriends,’ and we’ve been developing it since then,” Ross told Glossy. She added that Pattern Beauty was 10 years in the making when it launched, and many of its current and future products are solutions to her own hair-care struggles during her time in Hollywood. “I had to figure out how to look cute on TV, not damage my hair more and discover a whole new world of styles. … [Professional stylist] Scott Williams introduced me to tourmaline curling irons … and I started to discover that curling irons could actually be a part of my daily repertoire,” she added.
Heat tools have become an increasingly popular hair-care category as consumers seek to achieve salon-grade services at home. According to Grand View Research, the hair tools market was valued at $43.4 billion in 2023 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 5% from 2024 to 2030.
As one of Pattern Beauty’s core tenets is giving consumers access to their best hair via their own bathroom, releasing a curling iron felt like the natural next step to expanding in the heat category, Ross said. According to Ross, the tourmaline ceramic material on the iron’s three barrels emits natural ions for intensified shine and also ensures even heat distribution, which reduces heat damage — a key concern for textured-hair consumers.
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In step with the launch of the curling iron, Ross said Pattern Beauty is exploring new ways to grow the brand. This year, the brand is transitioning “from being a toddler into being a young child,” said Pendarvis. Prior to joining Pattern Beauty, Pendarvis worked mostly in the fashion apparel industry at brands such as Victoria’s Secret, Old Navy and Banana Republic. Most recently, she was co-president of Rihanna’s lingerie brand, Savage Fenty. Pendarvis said her primary objective in this role is to help the brand move from a startup to a best-in-class beauty company.
Pendarvis plans to usher in a new era for the brand through continued product innovation, bespoke programming with Pattern Beauty’s retail partners and brand awareness through increased marketing efforts. Pendarvis and Ross will also focus on “bringing on new capabilities, expanding the team and putting the right systems and tools in place to support the growth,” said Pendarvis. She declined to share Pattern Beauty’s annual revenue.
Pendarvis added that, as Pattern Beauty expands its brand awareness, the team expects to “see our loyalty rate grow and our customer base increase. All of that will translate into increased revenue across all of our channels — within our retail partners, as well as our direct-to-consumer and digital channels.”
