After years of research and development, biotechnology is poised as the future of beauty and personal care, with experts predicting an industry revolution. And leading the transformation of hair care is K18 Biomimetic Hairscience (K18).
The patented K18PEPTIDE™ has been a revolution for haircare – clinically reversing hair damage from bleach, color, chemical services and heat in just four minutes. This damage repair occurs on a molecular level, to work on all hair types, and enables stylists and consumers to push their hair transformations further without sacrificing hair health. The K18PEPTIDE™ came from over a decade of biotech research.
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For 10 years, Suveen Sahib, cofounder and chief executive officer of K18, and a team of top bioscientists mapped and tested the entire protein expression of the keratin genome, unlocking a deeper understanding of hair than ever before. Through ongoing research, the team aims to continue to expand the use of biotechnology – working to discover new ways to solve common hair challenges. K18 and this research focuses on overall hair health as the key to unlocking self-expression and hair freedom. The goal is to enable healthier hair while simplifying hair routines that are heavy on the hair and on the planet.
“At K18, we look at the world of beauty through the lens of hair, biology and biotechnology,” Sahib said. “We are all about understanding human biology, creating new molecules that work with your biology and nurturing a path to a more sustainable future that drives the beauty and personal care industries forward. We studied the human hair genome and scanned, tested, and assembled the entire universe of protein fragments expressed by the Keratin genome (the DNA instructions for coding keratin, which makes up your hair, skin, and nails). With this, we were able to create the K18PEPTIDE™ which was optimized to be able to integrate with hair proteins and reconnect breaks in the protein structure – enabling the damage repair on all hair types.
We used the same toolset used by the biopharmaceutical industry to develop our hair care products.”
According to Sahib, biotech future-proofs beauty. But what is biotechnology? Put simply, Sahib told Fairchild Studios, “biotechnology is the most sophisticated manufacturing technology on the planet. Biotech offers the beauty industry sustainability, performance, and creativity.”
Utilizing biotechnology, the next generation of beauty and personal care materials are inspired by nature and engineered to work with human biology.
“We believe nature is the best designer and also the best engineer, and we take inspiration from that,” said Sahib. “Biotechnology allows us to fuse the science and processes found in nature to engineer more effective and sustainable solutions. Instead of natural ingredients sourced from plants or animals, biotechnology allows us to produce those ingredients in a lab. An example would be brewing rose oil in a tank versus growing and harvesting acres of flowers to extract a few milliliters of rose oil.”
Until recently, most beauty materials were produced from plants, animals and fossil fuels. A problem since, not enough plants can be farmed to satisfy consumer demand for natural ingredients, and livestock agriculture accounts for 15 percent of global emissions and 70 percent of agricultural land.
“Biotech takes plants and animals out of the equation because it can harness the most advanced manufacturing factories on the planet: bacteria and fungi,” Sahib said. “Biotech allows us to produce molecules that have the same bioidentical profile as the ones produced from nature and accomplish this with less physical and carbon footprints.”
Importantly, when used for hair, Sahib continued, biotechnology can also solve for areas where cosmetic chemistry has fallen short, including the “needy hair cycle” that consumers continue to fall into and a limited functionality that were unable to address many personal care challenges.
“The cosmetic chemistry we have come to love has enabled creativity in styling outcomes, but cosmetic chemistry (such as bleaches and dyes) can be harsh on the skin, scalp and our microbiome,” said Sahib. “Cosmetic chemistry is not always compatible with our biology and our idea of sustainability and performance. We are intentional with our product development; we generate less waste by creating fewer products, and we only create products that deliver a meaningful result. Our mission is to liberate hair care. We believe that by doing so, we will liberate the creativity that will liberate our planet.”
In the next 10 years, it is predicted that synthetic biology and biotech will have the power to replace much of cosmetic chemistry that serves biology for hair and across all beauty. Biotechnology will allow for simplified personal care and beauty routines, healthier outcomes and enhanced styling.
K18 products are developed with a “less is more” approach, believing that products created with an understanding of the biology of hair and a focus on hair health can mitigate the need for more products and elaborate routines. Healthy hair needs less product and less maintenance. The brand’s use of biotechnology, while inspired by nature and engineering biology creates new, high-performance ingredients with new functionality to serve consumer needs in ways that nature cannot.
The K18PEPTIDE™ is a perfect example of this – inspired by the mapping of the human hair genome, it is optimized by human biology to mimic the functionality of hair’s keratin polypeptide chains. It uniquely can fit and reconnect those chains for lasting, meaningful repair from hair damage. And because it works on the molecular level, it works on all hair types.
“In just two years, K18 has grown from a concept to a global phenomenon,” said Sahib. “We have helped transform hair experiences and enrich stylists craft in more than 100 countries. We have built a universal product that has been proven to work across all hair types, genders and generations. Stylists love K18 not only because of its efficacy but also because of its spontaneous application, its speed and simplicity that helps them delight clients and also make more money from their day.”
Since its launch, K18 has earned over 25 prestigious awards, including WWD’s Product of the Year. The K18 Leave-in Molecular Repair hair mask is a top-selling treatment product at Sephora.
With great progress already made, Sahib told Fairchild Studio that the future of biotech presents even more possibilities in the beauty category. Not only will the use of the technology develop sustainable products that prevent the destruction of the rainforest or oceans, but Sahib’s team also says it will unlock new levels of ingenuity. The possibilities, they said, are endless.