Fekkai Brings Back Cult-favorite Styling Crème for 35th Anniversary
For Fekkai, the more things change, the more things stay the same.
When founder Frédéric Fekkai opened his salon at Bergdorf Goodman in 1989, hair care was a mass-market game, and department stores dominated the prestige channel. If the brand’s newest launch is any indication, though, its appeal has endured the shifting landscape.
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Fekkai is bringing back its Brilliant Glossing Styling Crème, a discontinued product introduced in 1995 that relies on prickly pear seed oil, Italian cold-pressed olive oil and a complex called PhytoVie Defense which includes polymers to mitigate frizz. It will launch first on the brand’s website Thursday before rolling out to Ulta Beauty and Amazon.
“We can talk about trends and TikTok and this and that, but what a client really wants is a product with great benefit and great results. Innovation is key,” Fekkai said. “You have to be relevant in formulation and technology, but you also have to have a product that does the job.”
The appetite for the product is higher than ever, said Tennille Kopiasz, the brand’s chief executive officer. “Ever since I’ve joined the brand, whenever I’m at a cocktail party, the first thing they say is to bring back the gloss,” she said. “We see reviews all the time asking for it, and the old product is being sold on eBay now for over $100 per tube. We knew we had to bring it back to talk to our customer.”
That customer, Kopiasz said, is “50-plus, she has a high spending power, and she’s extremely confident and comfortable in her own skin. Once we speak to her, once we get her, she’s extremely loyal, and we’ve been focusing on that from a channel perspective.”
Fekkai’s Brilliant Glossing Styling Crème, though, is expected to resonate broadly. “The priority was to create a product no one else has. This one was universal — everyone loved it,” Fekkai said. “The frustrating thing for anybody and any brand is to be confusing. Chasing the trend, you can be the last kid on the block. At the end of the day, you need to believe in what makes the brand strong.”
The brand has a partnership with Ulta Beauty — ”they have salons in the back of the store, and the salon is at our soul,” Kopiasz said — and is also available on Amazon. Industry sources expect the brand, sister brand Bastide and Fekkai’s salon business to reach between $30 million and $50 million in sales this year.
Neither Fekkai nor Kopiasz commented on the estimates, but Fekkai did say a laser-sharp focus on the brand’s value proposition was essential. “It’s so saturated everywhere, and the landscape is so overcrowded,” Fekkai said. “You need to have a differentiation point, and you need to deliver on that trust.”
Added Kopiasz, “We always stay true to Frédéric’s signature style, which is elegant, effortless, chic and casual. It’s synonymous with the brand, and at the end of the day, it’s timeless. We want to make sure everything goes back to that and never sways from it, and that always keeps us relevant.”
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