Worthington Styles Hair Like A Stripper

The Right Brain rants:

Here’s an interesting  product that gets props for creative packaging- Charles Worthington’s H2O Styling Strips, water activated gel strips for styling hair.

According to the company, you simply take one between the palms of your hands, add a splash of warm water, and rub to activate. Then spread through your hair to give it body and lasting hold. The strips are even packaged in a convenient ‘pocket pack’ like breath strips.

Cashing in on the strip craze

Here’s the problem: The solids content of a gel formula is typically around 10% or more.  Part of that solid content is made up by a thickener, typically Carbomer, along with a holding resin which is usually PVP/VA. This is the active ingredient that really styles hair. So if you need a dollop the size of a quarter to hold your style in place, you’re delivering approximately 1 gram of solid active ingredients. These strips each only weigh a fraction of a gram. That means you’d need to use 5 or maybe even 10 of them to do the same job as your regular gel.

The Beauty Brains bottom line

While we applaud the innovative use of delivery technology, this seems like a gimmick designed to cash in on the success of Listerine Breath Strips. We see little advantage to this quick and easy gel substitute.

What do YOU think? Would you sacrifice performance to gain portability? Or would you  just carry a tiny tube of gel in your purse?  Are you impressed when companies experiment with new products like this or are you just annoyed that they’re trying to sell you another bad idea?  Leave a comment and share your thoughts with the rest of the Beauty Brains community.