Sales Of No Fade Fresh’s Color-Depositing And Bond-Building Products Surge At Mass Retailers

No Fade Fresh wants to democratize bond-building technology and make it a lot more colorful. 

The sister brand to bond-building semi-permanent color-depositing professional haircare line Celeb Luxury, its objective is to bring salon-quality formulas to the mass market. The brand’s vegan color-depositing shampoos and conditioners come in 13 vibrant shades, including Natural Blonde, Natural Brown, Blue Blast, Lavender and Hot Pink. The application process is designed to take five minutes or less. All products contain the bond-rebuilder technology dubbed BondHeal that aims to strengthen and repair hair. 

So far, No Fade Fresh appears to be achieving its objective. It reports it’s the fastest growing brand in the semi-permanent hair color category, with sales up 27% year-over-year and 44% over the past four weeks. The brand boasts approximately 7,500 points of sale across the country. Its retail network spans CVS, H-E-B, Wegmans, Rite Aid, Target, Amazon and Walmart’s website.

Interest from CVS and Target initially prompted Celeb Luxury to reimagine its products for mass retail. “CVS and Target approached us thinking about Celeb Luxury,” says VP of marketing Tammie Hunt, who was director of store brands portfolio management for beauty, healthcare and consumables at CVS before joining Celeb Luxury in 2015. “They’re like, ‘We love this product, but we hate your price point. Can you do this at this price?’ At the 11th hour we created No Fade Fresh.”

No Fade Fresh’s products retail for $14.99, less than half of Celeb Hair’s retail price of $35. To swing the lower prices, No Fade Fresh has smaller bottles than Celeb Luxury. The latter brand’s bottles are 8.25 ounces while the former’s bottles are 6.4 ounces. The products are formulated at No Fade Fresh’s in-house lab in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. 

No Fade Fresh’s prices were engineered to complement, not cannibalize, retailers’ hair color sales. “We wanted to make sure that we were incremental sales in the hair color aisle,” says Hunt. “Customers can color their hair with box color if they choose or salon color, but then they can maintain and refresh the color using our products.”

Boxed hair color typical runs from $6.99 to $12.99 for one use. Depending on hair length, two boxes may be needed. With up to eight applications per bottle, No Fade Fresh’s price per application is $1.87. “It’s a really good value, and it actually preserves your hair color so that, when you do go back to color your hair, you’ve got nice even coverage,” says Hunt. “You can wait longer between coloring, and it’s repairing the damage that’s caused by hair color or bleach. You don’t get the breakage. It’s healthier hair all around.” 

No Fade Fresh hit CVS shelves on March 1, 2020, fortuitously shortly before at-home hair color became a must-have at the beginning of the pandemic. Hunt says, “The pandemic increased the demand for our products because consumers were being forced to color their hair at home, and we were happy to offer them a safe, clean, hair color that solves their needs.”

The brand’s bestselling hue across its distribution channels is its latest launch, Icy Silver Platinum. It’s No Fade Fresh’s answer to purple shampoos. “Rather than being a purple base, it’s a true silver grade base so hair doesn’t get that brassy yellow,” says Hunt. Other popular colors are Lavender, Bright Red and Light Pink. 

No Fade Fresh’s ingredient deck is a differentiator for it, especially as it pertains to its vibrant hues. In developing the formulas for No Fade Fresh and Celeb Luxury, VP of research and development Cindy Orr followed European Union ingredient regulations.

“Brands are saying they’re vegan- and cruelty-free and plant-based, but nobody’s looking at the fact that the dyes that they’re putting in these products are fabric and textile dyes,” she says. “It’s cheaper for them, but there’s no safety testing that’s done on these for use on humans, so you don’t know what you’re putting on your child’s hair or head or your pet’s head or hair or your own. That’s really important to us, the expectation of the highest performing products that are created in the most safe and responsible way.”

Bond-building haircare has largely been the domaine of luxury brands. Created by Olaplex developer Eric Pressly, the newest entrant, Epres, launched last week. With its product priced at $48, it joins popular brands K18 and Olaplex at the prestige end of the haircare market. No Fade Fresh’s BondHeal is available as a colorless treatment for $9.99, a fraction of the retail price of any of the premium brands’ offerings.

No Fade Fresh discovered its bond-building technology through a raw material supplier and planned to develop a standalone product with it. Once Orr started working with the technology, though, she realized it could be incorporated into the brand’s color products without losing efficacy. “We had an independent third-party lab do testing, and just with one application, the hair is up to three times stronger,” she says. “The molecule is derived from sugar and is just the right size to be able to penetrate into the hair and then it forms bonds within the hair, so it’s the right size to connect the actual bonds that are broken.”

Hair colorist Leland Hirsch founded No Fade Fresh and Celeb Luxury. In the 1980s, at his company ARTec Systems Group, Hirsch developed the technology for the first professional color-depositing shampoos and conditioners. ARTec was acquired by L’Oréal in 2002. 

No Fade Fresh is planning international expansion next year, kicking off with Canada and Mexico. Back in the United States, it’s set to debut a Hulu commercial this month to boost awareness and sales. It cost the brand $50,000 to produce the commercial.