Olaplex’s new CEO turns to her past at Supergoop in a bid to regain the brand’s dominance in haircare

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- Hair repair. Amanda Baldwin joined the sunscreen brand Supergoop in 2016 as the category was exploding. What had been a sleepy corner of the personal care sector in the U.S. became a hot beauty product, with consumers suddenly viewing SPF as a key part of their beauty routines.

It's an experience that prepared her for her new job as CEO of Olaplex, which she began in December. The haircare brand, known for a science- and repair-driven approach to hair, helped kick off a boom in the category when it launched a decade ago. Baldwin, an alum of LVMH earlier in her career, credits the brand with creating the category of "bond-building" haircare, or how Olaplex refers to strengthening and repairing hair.

But the brand is at a different stage of its lifecycle now. It's a more mature business with $458.3 million in sales in 2023—down a dramatic 34.9% from the year prior. (Olaplex went public in 2021 and was backed by private equity firm Advent International.) Olaplex is recovering from a lawsuit that alleged its products caused people to lose hair—the opposite of what the brand wants to be known for. The episode also lost Olaplex some of the stylists who are so important in the hair industry; the ones who recommend and sell products to their clients. (Baldwin says there has been "misinformation" and the brand is focused on the future.) And as more competitors enter the hair-repair category, Baldwin is seeking to help Olaplex become known for more than its initial products.

Still, Baldwin plans to rely on her category-building background to write Olaplex's next chapter. "If you create a category, you have to continue to lead it, you have to continue to innovate, you have to continue to break the next boundary," she says. Even when new players enter the space, "you're the original, you're the one that started the conversation," she adds.

Last month, the brand introduced a new product for curly hair that was called its "biggest innovation in 10 years." Her goal is to make clearer to Olaplex customers "what's distinctive about our product" through both product innovation and marketing, finding the white space that Olaplex can own in the years ahead.

Moving from SPF to hair, Baldwin has enjoyed the emotional resonance of that work with customers. "Everybody relates to the idea of what a good hair day is. It's an incredibly impactful, emotional category," she says.

Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com

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