Jupiter Brings Multipronged Approach to Dandruff
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When Robbie Salter and Ross Goodhart started self-funding initial research into hair care, the need they saw wasn’t just commercial. It was personal. Salter identified the partnership as “two frustrated flake fighters who saw an opportunity. We wanted a modern treatment for the era.”
Hence Jupiter, a direct-to-consumer hair-care brand targeting dandruff that launched with six products last week, including a shampoo, conditioner, mask, serum, elixir and scalp brush. Prices range from $15 for the brush to $26 for the elixir and mask, and the products are also sold as sets. Development has begun on more products, and industry sources say the brand is set to do between $1.5 million and $2 million in first-year sales.
The brand is based on the idea of busting the stereotypical two-in-one dandruff shampoos, offering a more holistic regimen for treatment of the total scalp. Part of their ethos includes shying away from certain synthetics like sulfates, phthalates and parabens, and keeping the formula color-safe. “We’re not the first to be clean, but we’re the first to do all of our attributes together. We think of ourselves as a half-step to the dermatologist,” Salter said.
The duo also discovered through consumer research that women, who are generally affected by dandruff as much as men, believe existing formulations didn’t cater to their needs, whether they be color-safe or formats with long-lasting efficacy between infrequent washes. Enter Jupiter’s Restoring Serum, formulated with zinc pyrithione (the dandruff-fighting active ingredient) for those who go longer between shampoos.
Salter himself saw a dichotomy between the large demographic of people with dandruff, and the narrow variety of treatment options. After talking to a dermatologist friend about his own dandruff, he also saw a lack of customer outreach and education. “Dandruff is about maintenance, it’s not about solving. You will always have dandruff, it’s about finding a treatment to keep things in check for you,” Salter said. “It should be a relationship-based experience because you’re going to be with that customer forever. I saw horrible branding, and had a bad experience using product.”
“We found a lot of people spending their personal care regimen on the moisturizers and fragrances and trading down to a drugstore product for their shampoo,” Goodhart added, “since nothing spoke to them in a way that the other brands do.”
For more from WWD.com, see:
Dove Taps Influencers to Push New Dandruff Line
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Bretman Rock: Quarantine Hair-Dye Devotee
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