Show HN: Function of Beauty (YC W16) – Personalized Shampoo | Hacker News Reader

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

functionofbeauty.com

31 pointsdossa24 comments

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!

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/

4) Thanks!! We think so too.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

Do you have independent, scientific references supporting your reasoning about the role each ingredient is intended to perform?

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!

Zahir, are these shampoos sulfate free?

They are! All our formulas are free of parabens, sulfates, phthalates, GMOs, and triclosan.

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.

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

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.

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 :)

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

There are natural ingredients that help with bacteria on scalp which usually causes odor and dandruff, but we haven't included them (yet) since they are considered an OTC drug. We have included essential oils in our formulas that may help, but the claims are not allowed to be made according to the FDA.

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!

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.

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!

Emailed you. Contact info is on my profile nonetheless. Happy to help.

Will do - thanks!

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.

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

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