BTC Exclusive! What You Need to Know About the New Revlon Professional U.S. Family

While you’re hard at work clipping, snipping, styling and tinting, the chess game played behind the scenes by the folks who make your favorite products keeps on. In one of the most recent moves, Revlon Professional reacquired Colomer Beauty Brands, which owned some of the industry’s most awesome lines—including American Crew, CND and the new kid sensation on the block, UniqOne. So what’s it all about, what does this mean to customers of these brands and what’s next? BTC caught up with Marty Flaherty, Revlon Professional Senior Vice President and General Manager of U.S. Business at the recent American Crew Opening Night Event in Denver for intel.

BTC: How about a little recap, Marty? What does it mean that Revlon Professional reacquired these brands?
Marty Flaherty: In a nutshell, a man named Carlos Colomer was a vice-president at Revlon Professional Worldwide. In 1993, he put together a group of investors to purchase Revlon’s professional brands, which, at the time, were American brands like American Crew and CND, plus an entire portfolio of European brands, including Revlon Professional. Since then, UniqOne, ABBA, Mop, Orofluido and d:fi became part of the company. All of the brands, with the exception of CND in San Diego, operated out of Denver.

BTC: So why did Revlon buy back the company?
MF: Because it had become so profitable! Over those 10 years, the current CEO, Lorenzo Delpani, made the professional entity a very desirable asset!

BTC: What can customers expect from this purchase, moving forward?
MF: We’ve just finished a move which consolidates all of the companies in our new headquarters in San Diego. We’ve combined some sales teams and back office functions to make things more efficient for all of our customers. There will be exciting new synergies in terms of shows. But overall, it is my hope that salon customers experience little difference day to day. There are still plenty of people dedicated strictly to each brand.

BTC: How is the new, “blended family” coming together internally?
MF: To be honest, initially I worried about merging these diverse cultures and how they would come together. But it’s been great! All the brands came to Opening Night for immersion into the American Crew brand and culture. Within 16 hours of the event, we had CND’s co-founder and Style Director Jan Arnold and American Crew’s founder David Raccuglia address the group. They are both such icons and personalities, and they both shared the culture, history and DNA of their brands. In two hours, we accomplished what takes up to two years in some cases like this. Everyone on the team was immersed and now feel that they’re part of something bigger and truly exciting!

BTC: What else can salon pros expect to see from Revlon in the near future?
MF: Right now there is a whole new generation of Revlonissimo haircolor going to market in Europe. It has a new, more efficacious base that colorists all over Europe are loving. We will begin a slow rollout here in some regions in mid-2015. We will also be launching a new collection of women’s styling products—inspired by and named after our annual Revlon Professional Style Master Competition and Awards (3,500 attendees from 70 countries)—at the 2015 Style Master event in Europe. Location and date to be announced!

BTC: How do salon professionals stand to benefit most from the Revlon connection?
MF: Traditionally in big, global cosmetics companies like this, the most innovative technology starts with professional haircare and skincare, and then trickles down. We’ve inherited new patents from the Revlon R&D teams so there will be lots of crossover and lots of interesting new technology coming along. Hairdressers should look forward to substantial investments in the pro brands from the company because as I’ve observed with big companies like Henkel (Schwarzkopf Professional), L’Oreal (Matrix, Redken L’Oreal Professional) and P&G (Wella Professional, Sebastian, Nioxin). That’s how it works. I like to say that the pro business is haute couture, and the mass market is pret-a-porter. You see mega investments in pro technology—the pros benefit first!