The inventor of an innovative hair extension holder has launched a new product even though the hair and beauty industry has been severely affected by the two lockdowns.
Danielle Crookall, from Plymouth, brought her EasyStrands hair extension holder to market in 2018, and went on to win industry praise.
In 2020 she released a new version of the product, in different colours, and has now released her second invention, the Custom Colour Mat which fits onto the EasyStrands and enables easy colouring of the hair to either match the clients’ own hair, or to create a new look.
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The product is being made available at a time when hairdressers are forced to close during the month-long second lockdown, as the Government tries to contain coronavirus infections.
Before England’s “non-essential” consumer businesses were ordered to shut on November 5 it was forecast by leading beauty brands that a second lockdown could shrink the beauty industry by 30%.
This comes just three months after the first national lockdown when all hair salons had to close for three months and mobile stylists couldn’t work either.
“It was hard, but we survived,” said Ms Crookall, who said the second lockdown means “the future is uncertain”. She said: “We’ve got so many plans for 2021, if we can just get through the winter, next year will be so exciting.”
The Custom Colour Mat, which Ms Crookall has launched with her step mother Elle Crookall, is made from durable silicone so it can be reused and Ms Crookall said: “You just put the colour mat onto the EasyStrands before the hair. You can then colour it, allow it to develop, rinse, wash and blow-dry all without the hair leaving the comb. Colourists are loving it. It’s been a real game changer. It’s stain proof, so you just wash it and it can be used again straight away”.
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She added: “It’s hard launching a new brand onto the market, it’s even harder when it’s a completely new invention, you have to show people how it solves problems that a lot of them probably didn’t even realise they had. Elle and I have learned so much working together and it’s brought us closer as a family too”.
Ms Crookall is determined to make EasyStrands a globally recognised brand and the EasyStrands Hair Extensions Holder an industry standard tool. She said: “If you want to be the best at what you do, you need to be using the right tools, ones that help you to be more resourceful so you’re working smarter, not harder. EasyStrands is designed to be that tool.”
Ms Crookall, aged 33, is a trained hair extensionist with more than 16 years of experience in fitting 11 methods of hair extensions. It frustrated her that there was no tool that could hold individual strands of hair extensions whilst she worked. She found the hair tangled very easily or just fell onto the floor, all adding to her fitting time and making it difficult to keep the hair in pristine condition.
In January 2017 she invented the EasyStrands and with her step-mother after securing a £25,000 business loan from Outset Finance and another £25,000 from a private investor.
Ms Crookall then undertook two years of research and development to get the EasyStrands to the point where it was a salable item.
The product is manufactured in Plymouth at Magma Moulding, on the Burrington Industrial Estate, where the famous Trunki children’s ride-on suitcase is produced.
“We were helped out a lot by the guys at Magma,” said Ms Crookall. “They put us in touch with a team in Newton Abbot who drew up the designs for the prototype so that it could be injection moulded. I never knew making something so simple could be so complicated.”
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EasyStrands was released at Salon International, a giant trade show for the hair industry, at London ExCeL in October 2018, by which time it had already received a nomination for the Innovation of the Year Award by the National Hair Federation (NHF).
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In 2019, it was again nominated for Innovation of the Year Award by the NHF and also by the Hairdressers Journal. By this time the EasyStrands was selling worldwide with suppliers in the USA and 海角视频.
“As it’s a professional tool, we can only sell to other businesses, people that are trained in the hair extensions industry, but we offer trade discount to wholesalers and suppliers who wish to sell our products to their own customers, as well as to training academies who can use the EasyStrands on their courses and offer them to their students,” Ms Crookall said.
“It’s such a great tool, it saves everyone so much time while fitting, I can literally see twice as many clients as before and they spend less time sitting in the chair. It’s so well made, thanks to Magma Moulding, that it can withstand the temperatures of any salon tools, it won’t melt or break, plus the stainless-steel comb is removable for easy cleaning which is essential now. Hair can be brushed, washed, dried and styled on the EasyStrands prior to fitting.
In 2020, the EasyStrands was released in the new black and gold colours and Ms Crookall said: “This has been our best seller, the black and gold goes so well with most salon colour schemes. We still sell a lot of the white EasyStrands, but black is definitely a favourite.”
Another thing that makes the black version more appealing is that it is environmentally kind, and she said: “Plastic is a dirty word these days, so we wanted to lessen our carbon footprint and not add to the plastic problem. The black hair extensions holders are made from repurposed plastic. They started their life off as other things. Once those things were no longer needed, the plastic was broken down and melted to become the EasyStrands, and we love that.”