This Launch Is Doing For Hair Accessories What Fenty Did For Foundation

Rihanna has plenty of diehard fans and it’s easy to see why—there’s obviously her chart-topping music, her unique style and her success as a businesswoman, to name a few. But Sophia Wojczak, Founder and CEO of Arachne, has a different reason to admire the multihyphenate: Rihanna finally made having a wide range of foundation shades not only mainstream, but practically mandatory for makeup brands with Fenty. Now Wojczak wants to do the same with hair accessories, dubbed HairTones.

“When Fenty first came out it was a huge range of shades, and it was so game-changing and groundbreaking at the time,” Wojczak says. “It’s one of those things that [made you think] ‘wow, this is great, but how come we haven’t done it sooner?’ Fast forward to today, in a different industry, but we’re in that same boat. Honestly, I think a big piece of that is because of the sheer inventory.”

Arachne HairTones offers a range of hair accessories—from hair elastics to snap clips to bobby pins to claw clips of all sizes, to name a few—in an array of 10 hair colors. Most brands offer these hair must-haves in only black, brown and blonde, but Wojczak knew there was a rainbow of shades in between.

“Initially, we were very inspired by this cosmetic approach,” Wojczak says. “Even for our hairbrushes, we take a lot of inspiration from cosmetics with makeup brushes. When it comes to HairTones, these accessories are very inspired by the inclusivity of shade ranges that are offered in foundation and cosmetics. When we look at our industry, nobody’s really doing hair accessories in this expansive and thorough of a way of creating a comprehensive line of 10 different shades or tones. We actually trademarked ‘HairTones’ for this, which shows you how crazy it is that that was even available.”

Having an obvious elastic in a contrasting color to your hair can ruin a look, which is what HairTones is meant to avoid. “We have this assortment of color that allows our customer to truly match the color of their hair, whether in the summer or the winter, when you’re a little lighter or darker, or, warm, cool or neutral,” Wojczak says. “We describe the shades in that language of the tonality and the warmth, like you do in cosmetics, giving as much information as possible, as far as what the color is and represents so the consumer understands this is for me, or the color they’re looking for.”

At a recent trade show, Wojczak knew she was onto something when she saw the reaction of a redheaded woman who checked out HairTones at her booth. “She had one of our exact hair colors and said, ‘Oh my god. You don’t know how difficult it is to find an accessory this color,’” Wojczak says. “She lit up. Seeing people’s reactions like that is why we do what we do, because it makes me so happy.”

A major hurdle is that most people don’t have just one hair color, thanks to highlights, whether natural or colored. “When we did all of our research we went deep into what is the base, mid-tone, highlight and undertones,” Wojczak says. “There’s so much color in one hair color. We tried to select the shades that are the most universal for that color story.” For the products that are worn closest to the roots, like the bobby pins, they went a bit darker, since hair tends to be darker closer to the scalp. For the elastics and hair ties, they went a bit lighter because hair is usually naturally lighter at the tips. “With that level of detail in the development process, we think we think we hit it. While we were developing this, we also reached out to our professional team to see what they said because we wanted to make sure it was right—they’re the ones that are doing the color.”

HairTones was in product development for three years, and a large part of that was deciding which 10 shades to include. To have just the right mix, Arachne went to their customers and community for feedback on it, asking them if shades were a little too warm or too cool, or whether they wished for something in between. “We wanted to give enough of an assortment that it’s impactful, but not go too far that we’ve eliminated the need to hear from our customers,” Wojczak says.

All of the hair accessories can be tucked into Arachne’s L’Uovo, translating to “egg” in Italian, which describes its shape. The compact, reusable plastic case is made from 100% recycled materials and comes in clear and opaque and can be clipped onto a purse, suitcase or keychain. Six different hair accessories are offered in the 10 shades. Each type of accessory can be purchased as a refill pack, since hair ties and bobby pins aways seem to go missing. When you’re ready to reorder, the QR code is on the back of the Uovo, making the process seamless.

Eventually, Arachne plans to expand beyond the 10 shades. “We’re starting with the basics and then filling in those gaps,” Wojczak says. “We totally see a world where we can introduce more seasonal colors or fun colors, or even do some collabs, and find the opportunity to do something unique. We would love to have a HairTones drop for the summer and fall that’s limited edition. But we definitely want to hear again from our community first and see if we’ve got it right this time and what’s missing. This is something that’s a core program of the brand, so we see this having longevity to it.”

The challenges of developing HairTones went beyond creating the shade range. Wojczak explains that the packaging was tricky as well, since there was a lot of development in the pouches the accessories come in. Additionally, it was tough matching the different materials and fabrics—think a metal to an elastic—in the same consistent shade across the board.

Wojczak is certainly no stranger to the hair business. She literally grew up in that world because her grandfather founded Conair. She left the family business in 2023 to launch Arachne. “I knew it was time for me to start something and build something of my own,” Wojczak says. “I was seeing this void in the market for a line of professional premium products that were sustainable, not only in the packaging, but the product as well, with an aesthetic, beautiful design. We like to say that looking good and doing good don’t have to be mutually exclusive. We’re bringing an aesthetic and design element to these products, and doing it in a completely sustainable way. Now, a year later, we’re expanding the assortment pretty significantly with this new collection, from 18 skus to 60.”

Just as Rihanna broke the internet for changing our expectations for foundation shades, Wojczak is hoping she can do the same for hair accessories. “Hair color is such a personal thing,” she says. “It’s going to be interesting seeing how people react to the HairTones colors, as far as finding it to be reflective as theirs.”