Jen Atkin is taking her brand to Sephora — again.
The mega-hairstylist is taking cues from her journey with Ouai — which sold to P&G Beauty in 2021 — and bringing her new brand, Mane, to the same retail partner in 670 doors, starting Feb. 19.
The launch will include a power base and three interchangeable heads, including a curling wand, a curling iron and a triple-barrel waver attachment, each of which will retail for $50.
True to Atkin’s goal of making a brand with a sense of humor, that power base is actually dubbed the Power Bottom. “I just do whatever I can to really offend my Mormon mother,” Atkin said in an interview.
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“We wanted the brand to be really tongue-in-cheek and that’s what’s fun for me. I come from a time when traditional hair care brands were never connected to a customer’s preferences or their values or aesthetic. It’s fun for me to push the envelope,” she said.
The Ready or Knot Detangling Brush, the This Totally Blows! Ionic Compact Hair Dryer and the Three Way Multi-Use Flat Iron will also launch at Sephora.
The brand was born out of Atkin’s platform, Mane Addicts, where she “has 10 years of dialogue with our audience. Plus, I worked really closely with high-tech tools, and the feedback I always got was that people wished they could afford it,” Atkin said. “It was during the pandemic that I started figuring out what we wanted the price point to be and the brand to look like. And it’s been out for a year so far.”
The launch comes as hair care is booming at Sephora. “We have been on this rocketship in hair since the pandemic. 2023 was an exciting year for us as we were one of the fastest-growing categories at Sephora,” said Jennifer Lucchese, vice president of merchandising, hair, Sephora. “What came into play is we see continued strength in the treatment category, and a huge resurgence in styling.”
What attracted her to Mane, though, were a handful of differentiators. “Hair tools have always been a great business for us, but it’s always been driven by innovation,” Lucchese said.
“Consumers are looking for the best of the best, and we’re seeing innovation in hair in multipurpose products. When we first came across Mane, we didn’t just love the beautiful brand, but it’s high-quality hair tools driven by a stylist’s point of view at a real accessible price point,” Lucchese continued.
Atkin said the brand’s marketing will hit a variety of channels. “I’ve been able to reimagine how consumers consume content. There’s a lot that we can do,” she said. “I like the idea of finding more vintage ways to connect with consumers. I was just reading about how Gen Z is bringing back malls, and I find that so exciting.”
That’s one of her demographic sweet spots. “Think about that age, how excited you were to get out of your house to go to the mall. We didn’t worry about bills and we were so in touch with our creativity and experimenting with who we were,” Atkin said. “We want to present that to the world, and to be able to talk to that consumer is so fun.”
