Portland's Hickox Studio Takes on Big Beauty

Will Justin Hickox be the next Paul Mitchell? The owner of Portland Oregon's Hickox Studio hopes so. The response from readers on a top beauty site may be a precursor of success few salon owners enjoy.

In September, the leading website for curly hair care, Naturallycurly.com, posted a glowing review of his best-selling product, Phat Hair. The response from readers was overwhelming.

"Before that, Naturallycurly.com had declined to sell our line, but so many people clicked through from the review to our site, that they changed their minds."

In October, Naturallycurly.com's online store began to carry seven of Hickox Studio's products. The site gets over three million hits a month and has grown by 142% this year alone.

The Hickox Studio line has been in development for over ten years. "My goal was to use the salon to test products on select clients for at least 2 to 3 years. I won't put anything for sale that hasn't proven worthy."

It was these same loyal clients who urged Hickox to take the line national. "They kept saying, this is so much better than what's out there, you should find other avenues to sell it."

Hickox hopes that the deal with Naturallycurly.com is only the beginning. His team is aggressively sending out products for review to magazines and beauty blogs in an effort to get more national attention for his regional brand.

It's an ambitious venture: the high-end salon market is dominated by beauty behemoths such as Bumble & bumble and Frederic Fekkai. Justin Hickox is confident his line will take hold, however. "We're not invested in special marketing ploys. We just wanted a product line that first and foremost works. At the end of the day, that's all that matters."

For more information, visit:

http://www.hickoxstudio.com
http://www.naturallycurly.com