Shampoo is clear and transparent. Conditioner is milky and white. The two ubiquitous truisms of haircare. In a category so fiercely competitive it fights over 0.0x% of formulation innovation and every inch on packaging design, this looks like an odd instance of inertia.
So together with [censored-green-s] Yuzu came up with a strategy around thinking about organoleptics－the properties of sound, touch, look and feel of a liquid, and what cues from culture could be used for each to get across the right message. After all, the shampoo needs not only to wash your hair, it also needs to feel like it’s cleansing your hair, the conditioner that it’s nourishing it.
The outcomes fed into the lab are proprietary and not Yuzu’s to share, you’ll find them on shelves in due course. But what can be said on a level of general cultural insight is that there are myriads of ways of developing way more exciting textures that ‘say’ the right thing without actually having to say it－in much deeper, richer, and more visceral ways than a tagline ever could.
Let’s forget about what others are doing in haircare. Yuzu finds it much more valuable to look into how culture more broadly understands and conveys ideas like ‘nourish’, ‘‘cleanse’ or ‘enriching moisture’. Often the best inspiration comes from things and categories that have nothing to do with the category－from culture more broadly:
Ever thought about a Korean snail face sheet mask’s gooey texture as a blueprint for a haircare liquid? And how anyone would understand it as rich and nourishing (also because of the snail mask skincare association), i.e. as the treatment part of the duo; while something with little nori (seaweed) pieces would give anyone subconsciously a vibe of ‘oh this is kinda abrasive, so it must be the cleanser part of the duo’, like the little pieces you’d find in a Xylitol chewing gum to give you the feel of polishing your teeth. With these two inspirations from Korea and Japan alone you’d already have a starter idea for doing something with much more oomph than most others would dare.
And this isn’t even touching on going into what more can be done with sonic or other organoleptic cues…
