Personalisation is now beauty’s favourite buzzword.
There’s nothing like having a product customised for you and you alone, and those of us who have jumped on the personalised skincare bandwagon know this to be true. With this novel approach to beauty on the rise, another industry has hopped on the bespoke bandwagon: haircare.
Just like your skin, everyone’s hair and scalp make-up is different, and so are their needs. American-based haircare brand Function of Beauty understands this and has entered the beauty business with the goal of making your haircare as personal as possible. Because we suffer from a fair share of hair troubles that few off-the-shelf labels have been able to address, we decided to give Function of Beauty a go.
According to their website, “ There are 8 billion heads on the planet. That’s a lot of hair; and a lot of different hair types. And underneath all that hair are people with different moods, styles, hair goals, and preferences. Call us crazy, but we think it takes more than just one or two formulas to please all of those unique individuals.”
We were convinced. After all, if this turned out to be useful, it would mean saving up on the pricey treatments at the salon. Here, we’re weighing in on how these made-to-order formulations compare to other mass-market products you can find elsewhere.
1. It allows users to formulate a product that addresses a range of hair concerns
Most commercial products focus on a specific hair concern such as dandruff, shine, damaged hair and so on, so it can be difficult for consumers with multiple concerns to select the right formulation.
This rings true especially for those with bleached and dyed hair — more often than not, your hair is not only brassy from the bleach, it is also extremely damaged, with split ends aplenty.
Function of Beauty allows users to select up to five hair goals, and it also lets you select your hair type, thickness and scalp moisture for the most optimised solution to treat your hair with. This ensures that you’ll never have to forgo one hair concern over the other, and you’ll be able to treat both your split ends and reduce the brassiness of your hair at the same time.
2. It is sulfate, paraben and cruelty-free
Sulfates allow grime and dead skin cells to be removed from your skin and scalp, but what many don’t know is that they also strip natural oils from the scalp and hair. As for parabens, think of them as your preservatives: they allow products to survive for months and years on shelves and cabinets.
Most commercial haircare brands make use of formulations with sulfates and parabens to create products with long shelf lives, and to generate a foamy lather that is perceived to clean and clarify the scalp.
As a clean beauty brand, formulations from Function of Beauty avoid potentially harmful or toxic chemicals such as sulfates and parabens, and instead makes use of 50 natural ingredients sourced from around the world.
Apart from that, all products from Function of Beauty is cruelty-free. This means that products are 100 percent vegan, with no animal testing, and don’t contain any ingredients made or derived from animals. We found comfort in the fact that the company made sure that all of their suppliers met with the same high standards as they did too.
3. The subscription plan ensures that you’ll never run out of product
How many times have you stepped into the shower and realised you’ve run out of product? Sure, you can always stock up on a couple of bottles at home just in case, but who’s to say your hair is the same now than it was two months ago?
Function of Beauty‘s free-shipping subscription allows users to get automated shipments as often as they’d like. We found that even after a month’s worth of daily hair washing (yes, we know you’re not supposed to wash your hair daily, but we did for this review), we’ve only gone through less than a third of the product, which means that you can probably get by with selecting the three-month frequency.
Users can always adjust the formulation and frequency of delivery depending on their needs.
4. Aesthetics is key
Showers are a therapeutic space, so it’s nice to treat yourself to aesthetically-pleasing bottles that smell amazing too.
Choose between five different scents (we went with the invigorating Eucalyptus and Mint) and seven different pastel shades for your products. Dye-free and fragrance-free formulations are also available, but we couldn’t resist customising the scents and colours as part of the experience.
If you’ve got an inner-child like us, each box comes with a set of stickers to jazz up your bottles as well.
All in all, in our experience, Function of Beauty‘s products did address the hair goals that we were looking out for. As for its price point, we paid a total of S$110 for the shampoo, conditioner and hair mask, after a 20 percent discount code. It may seem steep compared to other mass-market products out there, but given that will last about three months, this comes up to about S$33 a month, which seems pretty reasonable on our end.
We don’t know about you, but attaining smoother hair after frequent dye-trips to the salon and daily heat-styling is something we thought impossible until we tried Function of Beauty. It’s safe to say this is one product we’ll be using for the long run.
Jocelyn Tan
Senior Writer
Jocelyn Tan is a travel, food and design writer who loves to explore lesser-known cities abroad and chat with locals about their favourite eats in town. When she's not writing, she's probably indulging in serial killer podcasts or reading one too many books on East Asian history.
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