RevAir, the ‘Reverse Air’ Hair Dryer Brand, Is Betting on Hair Care Products Next

RevAir is expanding its product purview.

The hair tool brand known for its RevAir “reverse air” hair dryer which launched in 2018 — and then again in 2022 with a smaller, quieter iteration — is setting its sights on the hair care category with two new collections: Extreme Hydration and Boost Density.

“We did a consumer insights project with both consumers of ours and those who had never heard of RevAir to find out what their top hair needs are based on their hair type and texture,” said Theresa Ilijevich, director of organic marketing at RevAir, of the genesis of the collections. “The top desires that we heard were length, strength and hydration.”

The Extreme Hydration line spans five products and ranges in price from $16 for a detoxifying pre-wash rinse to $28 for the Deep Conditioning Treatment. Hero ingredients include coconut water, hyaluronic acid and olive leaf extract, while the pre-wash rinse also taps apple cider vinegar, believed to tackle product buildup and restore pH balance.

Boost Fullness, meanwhile, features a shampoo, conditioner and a leave-in treatment that range in price from $23 to $48 and harness biotin, turmeric extract, amino acids and vitamin E to support strand strength and density.

“The goal is to provide products that work, make a difference and save time, and are not just like products that are out there,” said RevAir founder and mechanical engineer Scott Thomason, who began developing the RevAir device when a colleague of his, who was a single father, struggled to style his daughters’ hair.

“[My colleague] called me and said ‘we should make a ponytail device,’” said Thomason, whose own daughter was 11 years old at the time, and who was encountering similar difficulties. After developing a prototype that acted similar to a vacuum in suctioning the hair to allow a hair-tie to easily slip over it, the pair saw potential for more.

“Immediately, we saw other benefits — the speed of drying the hair, the shininess and smoothness. It took more than a year and hundreds of prototypes, but eventually we got the RevAir,” said Thomason, who aims to succeed again in providing consumers with one-of-a-kind solutions with the product line.

The RevAir device.

Though Thomason and Ilijevich did not specify sales expectation for the launch, industry sources estimate the Boost Fullness and Extreme Hydration collections could do around $4 million in first-year sales.

“Our hero product line is Extreme Hydration; a lot of our customers experience breakage and need moisture among their hair care needs,” said Ilijevich, who noted curly and coily-haired consumers drive a significant portion of the brand’s business.

“When we were testing the RevAir tool, most of the testers were curly-haired from the beginning. And then we tested on coily-haired consumers and they embraced the technology because it provided them with something they didn’t have before by drying and stretching their hair,” Thomason said.

A year after launching, RevAir forayed into a product line with a range of primers, though they didn’t quite land as hoped.

“It was only a year after we launched, and we weren’t really sure who our consumer was,” said Ilijevich. The brand pulled the primers and applied the learnings to Wednesday’s launch, which is more robust and by contrast, need-specific, so the brand anticipates it will be more resonant.

In May, RevAir launched its tool at Best Buy after being in talks with the retailer since before the COVID-19 pandemic; the device is also sold on Amazon, though the product lines will solely be available direct-to-consumer for the time being.

Source: WWD