K18 is introducing a new double-duty offering.
The brand is launching HeatBounce, a conditioning heat protectant featuring a patented molecular shield called ResiliCore. Retailing for $48, the product will debut July 30 on the Sephora app and launch direct-to-consumer the following day.
The product marks K18’s first powered by ResiliCore, which founder and chief executive officer Suveen Sahib described as the brand’s “biggest innovation” since the development of its K18Peptide, the hero biotech-derived molecule behind the brand’s first offering in 2020, the Leave-in Molecular Repair Hair Mask.
“We’ve had a lot of customers come back and say, ‘hey, we love K18, but we’d love a little more conditioning without weighing our hair down,’” said Sahib, adding that HeatBounce’s lightweight cream mist formula is “meant to complement the K18 mask while giving a segue into more effortless styling.”
ResiliCore is said to work by penetrating strands and protecting hair from the inside-out, rather than solely creating an external coating to protect from heat styling and UV rays. “It cross-links the internal bonds to prevent thermal breakdown, making hair more resilient to heat protection,” said Sahib.
Though Sahib did not comment on sales expectations for the product, industry sources estimate that HeatBounce, which will be distributed in salons around the globe in addition to landing at Sephora stores in August, could do $50 million in first-year sales.
K18 HeatBounce
COREY MAYWALT
“Chemically damaged hair — whether it’s damaged from coloring, straightening, perming — you don’t want it to be coated with multiple products, because that will weigh it down and cause breakage,” said Sahib, adding that multipurpose products are core to K18’s DNA.
Earlier this year the brand introduced its AstroLift volume spray and prior to that, launched its AirWash dry shampoo, which marked K18’s first big innovation following the brand’s acquisition by Unilever in December 2023.
“We’ve gone from kind of crawling, to running, to walking to running — now, K18 is nearing this semi-adulthood stage, and it’s about how do we build the brand’s pillars as strongly as possible and also create a strong emotional dimension to back that up,” said Sahib.
K18 was one of the earliest biotech-driven brands to hit the market when it launched in 2020, though the space has since welcomed several new players. “Respect for science has grown dramatically in the last couple of years; respect for data has grown dramatically in the last couple of years, which are great signs, because what we want is storytelling with science — not storytelling without science,” said Sahib, who has leaned into a core community of hairstylists and enlisted public figures such as Simone Biles and Sofia Richie Grainge to help tell — but more importantly, Sahib said, show — the story of K18.
If the brand’s perennial buzz is any indication — CreatorIQ reports K18 was the sixth-biggest hair care brand by earned media value in June — this strategy is working.
