5 ms·

Show HN: Function of Beauty (YC W16) – Personalized Shampoo

31 points by dossa 11y ago

dossa 11y ago
Hey guys, I'm the co-founder and CEO of Function of Beauty (a YC company in the current batch). We're trying to disrupt the beauty space beginning with personalized shampoo and conditioner formulations. We use an algorithmic approach to translate a customer's hair type and hair goals into ingredient combinations that work perfectly for them. Customers are able to design almost any aspect of their formulation, from its color to its fragrance. We also print their name on the bottle with a UV printer, which is really cool. Once they receive their set, customers can further tweak their formula until they have the perfect shampoo. To achieve all this, we individually fill each bottle of shampoo and conditioner (rather than produce large batches). While this process is currently done by hand (which takes forever), my co-founder Josh is developing a machine to automatically and precisely fill each bottle. Hien, my third co-founder, is an industry-leading formulation chemist (and an awesome one) who oversees every bottle that is made from the algorithm we developed together. You can check this all out on our site if you'd like! Before placing your order, we show you the precise ingredients that will go into your bottles based on your hair profile so you can see our algorithm in action.
- woah 11y ago
  I just tried it out and looking at the ingredients list, some of them are "bristle oat seed extract, sweet almond extract, beet root extract, tamarind fruit extract" I always thought that the random vegetable extracts in hair products were just BS for the label, but I assume you must be putting them in the shampoo for good reason.
  - hientnguyen 11y ago
    Hello there, My name is Hien Nguyen and I am a co-founder and the chief scientist at Function of Beauty. Our hair goals are a proprietary blend of selected performance ingredients; each ingredient has been through rigorous clinical testing from reputable cosmetic ingredient suppliers. Black oat is used to "fix split ends", sweet almond extract deep conditions, beet root extract has high performance moisture, and tamarind fruit extract fights frizz. The extracts contain either amino acids, protein, essential fatty acids, or polysaccharides (and more!) which give its beneficial hair goal properties. I hope this helps answer your question and also in choosing your personalized hair care set.
    - DrScump 11y ago
      Do you have independent, scientific references supporting your reasoning about the role each ingredient is intended to perform?
      - hientnguyen 11y ago
        We do from our raw material suppliers who work with independent labs. However, the literature is for our research and development purposes only. Thank you for your interest!
- unexpected 11y ago
  Zahir, are these shampoos sulfate free?
  - dossa 11y ago
    They are! All our formulas are free of parabens, sulfates, phthalates, GMOs, and triclosan.
Nadya 11y ago
Men served but the little example JS`/inc/loop.js` only pulls in feminine names. May want to alternate a bit more. It comes off as a women's product until I go to the order page. This is the price point of my current stuff. I've sent a link to myself and will try it out when I get home. If you guys can actually create me the "perfect shampoo" for my needs at that competitive of a price, you've won yourself a customer.
- dossa 11y ago
  Awesome, thanks! That's a great point-- We actually had separated out our site into Function of Beauty: For Him and For Her (with separate loops) but didn't include it in the latest revision. I'll combine that now :)
dlss 11y ago
Some suggestions/comments: 1. I'd appreciate an unscented and uncolored option. 2. I'd appreciate some details on how the questionnaire translates to a changed formulation (why it's better, what research you used, ideally technical with references). Soylent and/or Mealsquares did this reasonably imo. 3. I don't really know if my hair is oily or dry, as I don't have a lot of experience with hair. Maybe normal? but then again I think everyone probably thinks that. 4. Cool!
- dossa 11y ago
  Thanks for the comments! See my responses below :) 1) Essential oils correlates to the "unscented" option-- we use a variety of essential oils in our bases and nothing artificial is added. Similarly, the "yellow" color option is actually uncolored. We should specify that! 2) We're trying to make a cool feature in the account page and a follow-on e-mail to mention some of the active ingredients at work in each formulation. 3) The oil level is a bit tougher to estimate but the easiest way is if you wash your hair with shampoo/conditioner in the evening, how does your scalp feel in the morning? If you dab it with a paper towel, would there be no oil (dry), a little oil (normal), or a lot of oil (oily). We are trying to make this process easier in hair lab: https://functionofbeauty.com/hair_lab/ https://functionofbeauty.com/hair_lab/ 4) Thanks!! We think so too.
nextos 11y ago
Have you considered taking into account the customer's skin bacterial composition? Or making a shampoo that is bacterial friendly?
- dossa 11y ago
  That's a great question-- the scalp and hair roots are arguably the most important aspects to consider when developing formulations. We don't currently take that into account but we should try to find an easy way to work with customers on that!
  - nextos 11y ago
    Yep, I do some metagenomics in an autoimmunity lab in Cambridge and this should be quite easy to address with a small and cheap trial. I'd definitely buy a bacteria-friendly shampoo. Ping me if you need some help.
    - dwgetjg 11y ago
      Hey nextos, I am interested in beginning a project in a related area and would really love to ask you some questions that few but a metagenomics researcher could answer. Could you send me an email at okolobeta@gmail.com if you're willing? (Or provide your contact info?) Thanks so much!
      - nextos 11y ago
        Emailed you. Contact info is on my profile nonetheless. Happy to help.
    - hientnguyen 11y ago
      Will do - thanks!
      - deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
- 11y ago
userium 11y ago
Nice! My first impression of the website was positive. Some quick thoughts: - I would like to see how the bottle (and maybe also packaging) looks like in real life before ordering. - I would prefer to fill in my personal hair profile before entering my full name and email address.
- dossa 11y ago
  Great suggestions! We are waiting for the touched up images of our bottles to come back today so we can at least show the actual bottles on the homepage. And that's a fair point- we collected the name to help demonstrate how it looks on a bottle in the next screen and we also didn't want to lose people during the order process for some glitches we were having which is why we get an e-mail address. We'll probably be able to do without it soon though!
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
spydertennis 11y ago
I ordered this awhile back when it was posted in the YC Holiday Gift list. I freaking love it. Relatively cheap and makes my hair feel better than the Aveda products I was previously using.
- dossa 11y ago
  That's really great-- we are super happy you are enjoying your set. We also have a pretty easy way for reordering
danielovich 11y ago
Can I become a distributor of this in the Nordics, Europe ?
aurbano 11y ago
It looks really good, I can't wait to give it a go. Any idea of when you'll start shipping worldwide? I'm based in the UK.

31 points by dossa 11y ago

dossa 11y ago

Hey guys, I'm the co-founder and CEO of Function of Beauty (a YC company in the current batch). We're trying to disrupt the beauty space beginning with personalized shampoo and conditioner formulations. We use an algorithmic approach to translate a customer's hair type and hair goals into ingredient combinations that work perfectly for them. Customers are able to design almost any aspect of their formulation, from its color to its fragrance. We also print their name on the bottle with a UV printer, which is really cool. Once they receive their set, customers can further tweak their formula until they have the perfect shampoo. To achieve all this, we individually fill each bottle of shampoo and conditioner (rather than produce large batches). While this process is currently done by hand (which takes forever), my co-founder Josh is developing a machine to automatically and precisely fill each bottle. Hien, my third co-founder, is an industry-leading formulation chemist (and an awesome one) who oversees every bottle that is made from the algorithm we developed together. You can check this all out on our site if you'd like! Before placing your order, we show you the precise ingredients that will go into your bottles based on your hair profile so you can see our algorithm in action.

woah 11y ago
I just tried it out and looking at the ingredients list, some of them are "bristle oat seed extract, sweet almond extract, beet root extract, tamarind fruit extract" I always thought that the random vegetable extracts in hair products were just BS for the label, but I assume you must be putting them in the shampoo for good reason.
- hientnguyen 11y ago
  Hello there, My name is Hien Nguyen and I am a co-founder and the chief scientist at Function of Beauty. Our hair goals are a proprietary blend of selected performance ingredients; each ingredient has been through rigorous clinical testing from reputable cosmetic ingredient suppliers. Black oat is used to "fix split ends", sweet almond extract deep conditions, beet root extract has high performance moisture, and tamarind fruit extract fights frizz. The extracts contain either amino acids, protein, essential fatty acids, or polysaccharides (and more!) which give its beneficial hair goal properties. I hope this helps answer your question and also in choosing your personalized hair care set.
  - DrScump 11y ago
    Do you have independent, scientific references supporting your reasoning about the role each ingredient is intended to perform?
    - hientnguyen 11y ago
      We do from our raw material suppliers who work with independent labs. However, the literature is for our research and development purposes only. Thank you for your interest!
unexpected 11y ago
Zahir, are these shampoos sulfate free?
- dossa 11y ago
  They are! All our formulas are free of parabens, sulfates, phthalates, GMOs, and triclosan.

Nadya 11y ago

Men served but the little example JS`/inc/loop.js` only pulls in feminine names. May want to alternate a bit more. It comes off as a women's product until I go to the order page. This is the price point of my current stuff. I've sent a link to myself and will try it out when I get home. If you guys can actually create me the "perfect shampoo" for my needs at that competitive of a price, you've won yourself a customer.

dossa 11y ago
Awesome, thanks! That's a great point-- We actually had separated out our site into Function of Beauty: For Him and For Her (with separate loops) but didn't include it in the latest revision. I'll combine that now :)

dlss 11y ago

Some suggestions/comments: 1. I'd appreciate an unscented and uncolored option. 2. I'd appreciate some details on how the questionnaire translates to a changed formulation (why it's better, what research you used, ideally technical with references). Soylent and/or Mealsquares did this reasonably imo. 3. I don't really know if my hair is oily or dry, as I don't have a lot of experience with hair. Maybe normal? but then again I think everyone probably thinks that. 4. Cool!

dossa 11y ago
Thanks for the comments! See my responses below :) 1) Essential oils correlates to the "unscented" option-- we use a variety of essential oils in our bases and nothing artificial is added. Similarly, the "yellow" color option is actually uncolored. We should specify that! 2) We're trying to make a cool feature in the account page and a follow-on e-mail to mention some of the active ingredients at work in each formulation. 3) The oil level is a bit tougher to estimate but the easiest way is if you wash your hair with shampoo/conditioner in the evening, how does your scalp feel in the morning? If you dab it with a paper towel, would there be no oil (dry), a little oil (normal), or a lot of oil (oily). We are trying to make this process easier in hair lab: https://functionofbeauty.com/hair_lab/ https://functionofbeauty.com/hair_lab/ 4) Thanks!! We think so too.

nextos 11y ago

Have you considered taking into account the customer's skin bacterial composition? Or making a shampoo that is bacterial friendly?

dossa 11y ago
That's a great question-- the scalp and hair roots are arguably the most important aspects to consider when developing formulations. We don't currently take that into account but we should try to find an easy way to work with customers on that!
- nextos 11y ago
  Yep, I do some metagenomics in an autoimmunity lab in Cambridge and this should be quite easy to address with a small and cheap trial. I'd definitely buy a bacteria-friendly shampoo. Ping me if you need some help.
  - dwgetjg 11y ago
    Hey nextos, I am interested in beginning a project in a related area and would really love to ask you some questions that few but a metagenomics researcher could answer. Could you send me an email at okolobeta@gmail.com if you're willing? (Or provide your contact info?) Thanks so much!
    - nextos 11y ago
      Emailed you. Contact info is on my profile nonetheless. Happy to help.
  - hientnguyen 11y ago
    Will do - thanks!
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
11y ago

userium 11y ago

Nice! My first impression of the website was positive. Some quick thoughts: - I would like to see how the bottle (and maybe also packaging) looks like in real life before ordering. - I would prefer to fill in my personal hair profile before entering my full name and email address.

dossa 11y ago
Great suggestions! We are waiting for the touched up images of our bottles to come back today so we can at least show the actual bottles on the homepage. And that's a fair point- we collected the name to help demonstrate how it looks on a bottle in the next screen and we also didn't want to lose people during the order process for some glitches we were having which is why we get an e-mail address. We'll probably be able to do without it soon though!

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

spydertennis 11y ago

I ordered this awhile back when it was posted in the YC Holiday Gift list. I freaking love it. Relatively cheap and makes my hair feel better than the Aveda products I was previously using.

dossa 11y ago
That's really great-- we are super happy you are enjoying your set. We also have a pretty easy way for reordering

danielovich 11y ago

Can I become a distributor of this in the Nordics, Europe ?

aurbano 11y ago

It looks really good, I can't wait to give it a go. Any idea of when you'll start shipping worldwide? I'm based in the UK.