Take a drop of blood, mix it with a smidgen of honey and plop it into a small ivory vessel peppered with holes. Then tuck it under your wig or petticoat to trap the fleas crawling everywhere.
No, personal care in 18th-century Europe was not as sophisticated as it is today.
This curious object — part of the Wella Museum’s vast collection and displayed in Procter & Gamble’s Darmstadt, Germany-based innovation center — stands in stark contrast to the high-tech science behind the company’s hair color, care and styling products, many of which are created at the same site. At this sprawling research-and-development facility, beauty takes on more than a blush of science fiction.
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You don’t have to imagine a microscope strong enough to magnify a strand of hair up to 3 million times. Here, one is affixed to a special foundation drilled into the ground to prevent it from shaking. The images it and other microscopes in the same room create (think ovoid-shaped cross-sections of hair and single fibers resembling trees) are splashed across computer screens.
“We have to switch off the air conditioner, and then it is very, very calm. You have to be very quiet,” confides Dr. Carl Uwe Schmidt, head of the microscopy laboratory. He’s explaining the finer points of the ultrahigh-resolution imagery from the scanning electron microscope used to study the internal structure of hair.
Probing deeply into the possibilities of modern-day beauty products — whether employing the latest technology or rigorous, repetitive old-fashioned testing — is a core mission at P&G in general and this center in particular.
“We are primarily an innovation company,” says Jerry Porter, director of salon professional R&D, adding that overall during the past five years, P&G has invested $10 billion in basic and applied research across all of its categories. The firm has penned more than 2,500 articles in peer-reviewed journals and boasts 35,000 active patents. Of those, about 10,000 have been filed in the Beauty and Grooming division, which has over 2,300 R&D employees in centers in Europe, Asia and the Americas.
Innovation comes from the outside as well, under a program called Connect + Develop, which was first pioneered by then-chief executive officer A.G. Lafley in 2002. Today, the company estimates that more than 50 percent of its product innovation involves at least one collaboration partner. Sometimes innovation stems from cross-pollination of P&G’s far-afield competencies. Swiffer, for instance, resulted from a marriage between the paper and cleaning categories. Says Porter, “If we innovate right and do it right, then we have a loyal consumer, and it’s easier to market to them because they trust us.”
On any given day, P&G’s Beauty and Grooming division — which markets approximately 40 beauty brands in almost 130 countries across all distribution channels — is working on numerous projects. One current study, for example, focuses on the “$1 consumer,” who has only a dollar or two to spend on goods per day. Another project involves the film company Pixar for an upcoming hair color–related project, while architects, sculptors and painters have been tapped by P&G to recreate different hair coloring experiences for another.
The Darmstadt facility focuses on hair care and color — and specifically P&G Salon Professional, which includes the Wella Professionals, Sebastian, Nioxin, Clairol Professional and Sassoon Professional brands — and is part of a triumvirate making up the German Innovation Center. It comprises a site in Kronberg and another in Schwalbach, and they are each within a 25-mile radius of Frankfurt and employ about 1,000 people in research and development out of the total head count of approximately 4,000.
The Darmstadt unit is full of newfangled test methods.
A black-velvet lined box used to test hair shine and highlights (or “glints and sparkles”) resulting from products such as hair colorants and hair care stands on a table in a darkened room. It’s the bastion of Dr. Knut Meinert, R&D test-method development principle scientist. To assess hair-shine levels, he and his team conceived this bespoke apparatus based on about 15 years of research.
The box contains hair tresses mounted on a cylinder. For one trial, a light shines on the locks and measurements are taken of all the reflective rays within a 180-degree angle via a computer and high dynamic range imaging. The higher the contrast between illuminated and outlying parts, the greater the shine perception (which is generated by image analysis in people’s brains).
Testing doesn’t stop there, though, since shine not only involves surface reflection but also light passing through one fiber then hitting another lying underneath. With a click of some switches, the light source changes and highlights spring from the blonde and red hair samples.
“With custom-built hair-shine methods, we were able to learn and understand better which ingredients of a hair cosmetic formulation contribute to hair shine and what their contribution to hair shine is,” explains Meinert. “This helped us to further improve our products to deliver better hair shine. Furthermore, we could do research on what the secrets of hair shine are — for instance, to understand the shine of blonde hair better and why it is so appealing for consumers.”
While the shine quotient is measured in Meinert’s laboratory, one building away, through a warren of corridors, then via an interior bridge and an elevator ride, there is a department focused on color in the technical testing salon. It’s headed by Isabelle Merz-Zahringer.
To the naked eye, her domain looks exactly like a well-appointed hair institute, replete with seats for just over 50 people, sinks, hair dryers and stylists. The space is as busy as a bustling salon, too — about 1,000 treatments are carried out here per month and there’s a cadre of 35 employees. On closer inspection, the main difference lies in how hair color is applied. Rather than covering all of one models’ hair with the same colorant, as in typical salons, it’s done on two sides of the head. One colorant is applied on one half, while a different formula is applied to the other.
“The main work we are doing is half-side comparison,” explains Merz-Zahringer. “To observe or assess a hair color objectively, it should be against two colors.”
Afterward, P&G employees are meant to objectively make a comparison of what they see following specific parameters (such as shine, brilliance and uniformity). Those assessments are put into a database for analysis, and a highly calibrated gray room (to staunch the impact of natural light) allows for visual comparisons in almost perfect color. Similar rooms are set up in P&G branches in the U.S. and Asia.
“The visualization is only a support during the shading work,” says Merz-Zahringer. “In combination with the description from the experienced R&D hairdress- er, it is a great basic for discussion and making decisions. You can discuss the results between the locations directly on the phone. In some cases it’s very difficult to describe a reaction to the hair, so it is very helpful to have this visualization possibility.”
To ensure that employees in Merz-Zahringer’s department can see color well, each is subjected twice yearly to a test conceived by Henry Munsell. Picture having to arrange four sets of twenty-something individual hues in an assigned color range (from blue to green or red or violet, for instance) in long rectangular boxes — in mere minutes.
“The test result shows if a person is able to differentiate fine shadings or has a ‘color blindness’ within a color area,” says Merz-Zahringer.
The Darmstadt site also has the extensive Wella Studios, which includes five main rooms that welcome hairdressers from Germany and abroad for theoretical and practical instruction. About 20,000 stylists pass through here yearly.
Some studios look exactly like a hair salon for hands-on practice; others are classrooms where courses for up to 200 people are held. On a recent August morning, a seminar dubbed “Start of Your Job” was in progress, where fledgling hairstylists role-played consultations. The room percolated with chatter and laughter.
“Our first goal is always really to be a partner of our hairdressers,” says Helga Pletz, global education capability leader, who explains that classes span the spectrum from cuts and color to how to run a salon business and can last anywhere from a couple of hours toAtwo weeks. “Our goal is to really create long-lasting relationships.”
A brief car ride away from the Wella facility stands the Braun innovation center in Kronberg. Its architecture — all sleek lines — reflects the emphasis on product design within. From an outside perspective it looks relatively small, but the multipurpose campus comprises 10 buildings of which three, employing more than 400 people, are devoted to R&D.
In one building, hidden behind a nondescript door, is the high-tech acoustic lab serving all of the site’s businesses, including Braun, Oral-B and powered blades and razors. It’s been around for more than 25 years.
Here, every auditory aspect of a device is analyzed — from the drone of a hair dryer to the vibration of a toothbrush. One of the coolest features is housed in an adjoining 222-square-foot sound chamber called the Semi-Anechoic Room, which is padded with pillowlike wedges to absorb sound waves. Here, where the quiet is almost deafening, seven low-noise microphones stand in a circle to reg- ister sound coming from a device placed in the center. The acquired data is used during the R&D process, for quality assurance, fault analysis and consumer acceptance and perception.
“But this method has one disadvantage — we cannot locate the sound sources from our devices,” explains Dietmar Korn, analytics section head.
To locate a sound source, an acoustic camera is used. This employs 36 microphones and a special algorithm to precisely pinpoint which part of a device is faulty. If a developer finds an electric toothbrush too loud, for example, he or she would bring it here, where different levels of sound pressure show up as various colors on a computer screen. The loudest is red.
This method is used in consumer testing and failure analysis, too.
“Consumer perception is one thing,” continues Korn. “But you can use sound as an element to describe your product. This is part of our design language. Sound is also feedback for the consumer.” To that end, back in the acoustic lab, two artificial heads equipped with microphones that simulate human hearing are used. It’s been found that in general, most consumers like powerful sounds at low frequencies and moderate loudness.
Also in this room, there’s a system called a laser Doppler vibrometer, which is used in the development of small electric appliances, to take a surface’s noncontact vibration measurement.
“This is important because we don’t like vibrating devices — they’re not comfortable,” says Korn. “So this is also part of our quality and design language.”
While the focus on sound may be intense, it’s no surprise. Sound can be instrumental in sealing a deal. Take razors, for example. “If you have 10 products in a store, it is very easy to test the sound,” says Korn. “You cannot shave in the shop.”
Elsewhere in the building, Juergen Jost, section head of the quality laboratory at P&G Braun Global, steps into a room literally abuzz with activity in the Quality Innovation Center. Some 20 electric razors run simultaneously and almost nonstop (with just intermittent five-minute breaks) for about four weeks against leather strips in a setup designed to emulate a consumer’s usage over five to seven years. The swivel head is tested in this method.
In another part of the room, razors’ cutting systems are tested by running up and down long tracks of bristles. Jost explains that developing tests is an ongoing process. “It depends on the product and the request, as well as on the techniques available,” he says, adding that consumers’ needs come first. “One need was to have shavers that are very gentle to the skin.
“Starting from this point, the quality experts were looking for a test setup that reflects this need,” he continues. “Among other things, they were searching for some material that comes as close as possible to human skin.” Since these days, for several reasons, they cannot expect employees to act like a real test object, as Max Braun did while developing the first dry shaver in the Forties, they finally decided to go with premium smooth leather usually used for quality car seats.
“And this works very well,” says Jost.
Down the corridor, a room contains a hermetic chamber for testing devices under different climatic conditions. A few years ago, when Braun learned that some Japanese consumers were having trouble with their razors while shaving in bathrooms registering cold temperatures of around 40 degrees Fahrenheit, tests were carried out here, for instance.
“We verify that the performance is given within the whole range of temperatures and humidity regarding the specification,” says Jost. “The shaver has to run at room temperature as well as 5 degrees Centigrade and 40 degrees Centigrade [or about 40 degrees Fahrenheit and 104 degrees Fahrenheit]. That way we assure that the shaver will work in aIll countries independent of the different ambient conditions.”
It’s one thing to test a product in a high-tech research facility. It’s quite another to discover how consum- ers actually use a given product. P&G is famous for entering consumers’ bathrooms to better under- stand how, what and why people use personal care products. Here, they’re inviting consumers into their domain. The Kronberg fa- cility features a 5,555-square-foot consumer and product research center with 15 rooms, including three bathrooms with sinks and bathtubs, a fully equipped kitchen and two dentist offices (with a bona fide dentist on hand to check people’s teeth pre- and post-brushing).
Opened about three years ago, it’s used by numerous P&G product categories, such as female grooming, oral care, hair care and lifestyle products. “We try to bring the consumer into very authentic conditions,” says Gabriele Stahl, section head of product research, female electric hair removal. In each test room, between two and five cameras record the actions of the tester, while an expert observes the goings on. “This is what we do in all phases of innovation,” says Stahl. Some 1,500 consumers troop through the facility each year.
A vital part of what the Kronberg facility focuses on is “Beautronics” — P&G-speak for beauty devices, a burgeoning industry category with sales expected to reach al- most $1 billion at retail in 2011 and grow 25 percent annually during the next five years, according to Kline & Co. Currently at P&G, work is being done on light-based hair removal and skin rejuvenation, for example.
“There are a lot of early adopters who increasingly demand devices and appliances to bring beauty benefits to their home,” says Dirk Freund, director of R&D global design and beautronics.
These are becoming increasingly high-tech. For instance, devices in the Satin Hair Color styling line, including a hair dryer, curler and straightener, allow consumers to choose a particular temperature setting based on the type of hair they have.
Braun will also launch a product redesign of its line starting later this year. “The importance of the actual product design is extremely high — actually higher than 10 to 15 years ago, where in many of the stores you couldn’t even touch the product,” says Professor Oliver Grabes, head of design, P&G Global Braun.
“The second role of design is being an enabler of technical innovation and making this visible, and also design creating that innovation and making sure that the innovation doesn’t get stuck in the technology,” he explains.
One example is the Braun Satin Hair 7 Brush with IonTech technology, whose design was conceived with the Braun Design Department, which includes a model shop where P&G’s products are tested against competitors’.
“We work a lot with new materials,” says Grabes.
The brush’s creation started with mood boards. Consumers were asked about what they believed the world the brush would live in should be like, the materials they imagined it would be made of and the feelings they’d have when thinking of it.
The first design was a lighter color and more feminine, then was changed to black and silver. Some shape alterations were made to facilitate understanding of the brush’s usage, and actual usage was improved, too.
“We then moved on to have different color variations to test whether it should live in a more feminine and sporty world or if it could be this high-end, elegant beauty tool,” says Christine Hielscher, product designer. “Then came a moment where we [questioned] is this really the right way—to have a brush that looks like a brush, or should it be more futuristic, more innovative? And we went back one step.”
They created a version with flowing lines, and there were other iterations that “went in a more challenging direction,” she says. “We were leaving the archetype of a brush and taking it somewhere different. But we clearly got feedback that this was too far.”
“Then it’s endless fine-tuning of shapes and trying to integrate the technology, the battery, into something that’s different but not too different,” adds Grabes. “It feels right. It has the right weight; it has the right weight distribution. It’s all in the details.”
The Braun Satin Hair 7 Brush’s design process took two and a half years, but people in the Braun Design Department were involved collaborating with R&D and engineering teams to check elements such as surface finishes as well.
Helping spur innovation like this throughout P&G is future trends research that company executives refer to as “Lighthouse.” This is conceived in part through an external partnership with Illuminate research center and refreshed every two years.
“There are pretty much eight mega-trends that are worldwide relevant, and they don’t really change much from year to year,” says Benjamin Wilson, design manager of Future Lab.
Back over at the Darmstadt site, input from consumers and stylists help fashion the Lighthouse trends for the Salon Professional business. Four draft trends were devised for the 10 to 15 years to come and tested in cities such as Tokyo, Berlin, London, New York and Los Angeles.
The expected trends include the “eco-ethical beauty movement,” where responsible behavior is key. The “choreography beauty experience” is about social networks and being connected, while “artful beauty imagineering” is perpetually in flux and gleans inspiration from what’s going on in artistic worlds such as architecture, design and fashion. In “beauty laboratory,” people will go to all lengths — including surgery — to look perfect.
It’s all light years away from the flea-fighting charm on display in the Wella Museum.