Olaplex is taking its proprietary bond-building technology in a recent direction.

It’s launching Lash Bond Constructing Serum, the brand’s first product outside of traditional hair care treatments, stylers and cleansing products. It retails for $68 and can be available on Friday at Sephora and Ulta Beauty, in addition to the brand’s own website.

Even though it’s an inflection point for Olaplex, brand executives say it wasn’t a far leap from their existing products.

“Our original patented technology was patented for hair, skin and nails,” said Charlotte Watson, the brand’s chief marketing officer. “We’ve a really edited and curated portfolio, we wouldn’t launch something without careful consideration. Exploring other avenues in hair, like lashes, was the primary foray for us in fascinated with recent category alignments.”

The brand is leaning into the clinical claims across the product’s efficacy. “We actually benchmarked ourselves against the number-one prescription lash product, and we did just as well,” said JuE Wong, chief executive officer of Olaplex.

“We’re launching this across all of our partnerships at the identical time,” Watson continued, “Olaplex, Sephora and Ulta. It is going to be available within the skilled channel as well.”

In 2022, the corporate’s skilled channel grew 16 percent to $300.5 million in sales. At the moment, the brand anticipated a 41 percent sales decline in the primary quarter, with a lift to are available in the second half of 2023 due to recent products and expanded distribution.

The brand goals to message around Lash Bond’s claims as a part of its marketing strategy.

“We’re engaging a broad range of influencers across medical, dermatologists and makeup artists where relevant,” Watson said, adding it’s also the primary time Olaplex has shot content inside its labs. “We’ll go hard and heavy with the claims, but knowing that Olaplex is a lot founded in its technology, we desired to be certain that we broke that down and the patron understood how the prevailing technology combined with the brand new innovation.”

Olaplex experienced a rapid rise after its launch in 2014, but has estimated overall sales will decline year-over-year by 15 percent in 2023. The corporate faces macroeconomic pressures, a lawsuit from consumers alleging its products have damaged their hair and media attention around product safety.

“We see this as a chance to reassert our authority in hair health and in science and innovation. That is a chance for us to succeed in recent audiences. Although Olaplex has an incredibly high awareness, we’re only eight years old, and we’re still developing recent partners,” Watson added, of the launch.

Lash serums are also amongst probably the most requested products from the brand’s loyalists, Wong said. “The number-one reason people come to Olaplex is due to trust. The one thing they asked for outdoor of hair products was a lash problem, so that they make the association that we will play in that space,” she said. 

The formula is freed from sulfates, phthalates, parabens, gluten, silicone and prosthaglandin, and is vegan and ophthalmologist tested for safety.

The formula combines three various kinds of ingredients, including a peptide mix, bond-building technology and traditional ingredients like hyaluronic acid and biotin meant to condition skin and lashes. From a scientific standpoint, creating products with clinical support was difficult without prostaglandins, which lengthen the expansion phases of eyelash follicles, but can include various unwanted side effects, corresponding to eye irritation. “This project began a few years ago,” said Lavinia Popescu, Olaplex’s chief scientist.

Developing the mix of peptides alone took five years, Popescu said, adding that every class of ingredients counteracted different causes of lash loss, corresponding to makeup removal and follicle irritation. “We’re certainly one of the primary corporations within the industry to focus on these different mechanisms,” Popescu said.