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The Sleep Styler entered the Shark Tank in Season 8 with its rollers made of yoga towel fabric and memory foam that dry and style hair curly or straight while you’re sleeping.
We interviewed inventor Tara Brown who explained, “I came up with The Sleep Styler because I have the worst hair in the world! It’s half curly, half straight, and frizzy all over.” An opthamologist by day, she enrolled in fashion school to learn how to sew in order to make the first prototype. Twenty variations later, she had her final product, and has sold 2,000 sets of rollers since launching last August.
As of now, they are available exclusively on their website. However, her dream retail partnerships are places like Target, Sephora, Bed, Bath & Beyond and CVS.
Her foray into the Shark Tank came after she was contacted by one of their casting agents a week into launching her Kickstarter campaign. (Their fundraising goal was $10,000 and they made an impressive $47,000.) As for her nerves while facing the Sharks, she said, “I was so nervous, my teeth were chattering. Fortunately I had botoxed my armpits in preparation.”
Here’s what else she told us about…
Read all of Heavy’s Shark Tank coverage here.
How the Idea Came About From Taking a Braid Out of Her Daughter’s Hair
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The idea behind The Sleep Styler came from taking a braid out of my daughter’s hair that I had put in wet the day before. I started thinking about how her hair still had the braid shape, and that wave stayed until she washed her hair again. I thought there has to be a way to use that property of hair – that whatever position it’s in when it goes from wet to dry is how it will stay – to passively dry the hair into appealing shapes. But when do people have hours to sit around with their hair in rollers waiting for it to dry? When they’re sleeping! So I knew whatever I created had to be comfortable enough to sleep in.
What Makes Her Product Different
No other product can do what The Sleep Styler does. There are absorbent towels and turbans, these will dry but not style the hair. There are rollers comfortable enough to sleep in, but these are meant for hair that is already dry. And nothing else out there gives a straightening option.
Her Customers & Their Feedback
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Our customer demographic is anyone with a high hair-to-time ratio. The feedback is great! The people who benefit the most are those like me, whose air-dried hair is a big ol’ mess and they are tired of the damage caused by hot tools.
Their New Product for Short Hair-The Sleep Styler Mini
One piece of feedback we kept hearing again and again from our fans was that their hair or their friend’s/coworker’s/mom’s hair is too short for our long hair rollers, and can we please come up with something for them. So we did! The Sleep Styler Mini is half the size of the original and works like a traditional roller, but is made with our luxe yoga towel fabric and memory foam. It’s perfect for bobs and fine hair. The two rollers work great together for long, layered looks and extensions. The Mini is launching next month.
Balancing Motherhood With Running a Business
My two businesses take me away from the kiddos, and I have a lot of guilt when I have to miss something important. Two working parent households are so common these days, but the kids seem to manage, For me, making little efforts regularly add up to a lot. One day when my son was in second grade, I had an afternoon off so I surprised him by picking him up after school and taking him to the beach where we rented a stand up paddleboard for an hour. I paddled and he sat at the front and looked for fish in the bay. A year later I was looking through some writing assignments he had done and he wrote a story about the best day in his life being the time when his mom picked him up from school and took him paddleboarding.
More Shark Tank hair products:
CreaProducts Enter the ‘Shark Tank’: Interview With CEO
CreaProducts, DIY beauty supplies, entered the Shark Tank in Season 7. Heavy interviewed owner Mai Lieu about the business and her novel creations.
Controlled Chaos — Almost 10,000 Sold After ‘Shark Tank’: Interview With Owner
Controlled Chaos, a styling cream to manage curly hair, got a deal with Lori in the Tank’s Season 7. As the episode reruns, we interviewed owner Alanna York about their growth and future plans.
Pete & Pedro on ‘Shark Tank’: A Look Inside the Company With Their Co-Founder
Pete and Pedro entered the Shark Tank with their hair styling products made especially with men in mind. Heavy interviewed its co-founder.
Angela Barbuti started her reporting career in the seventh grade at her middle school newspaper in Queens. She’s had lunch with Tony Danza, and Dave Franco said he liked her accent. Follow her on Twitter @angciao.March 3, 2017 5:57 pm
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