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End the Churn of Cotton Towels and Save Water
The most water-guzzling activity in the salon after laundry is perming, so we continue our series on the Labor of Laundry with a look at a partnership between Sustain Beauty Co and Curl Cult, this has managed to slash water consumption and reduce waste.
by Staff
April 18, 2023
3 min to read
A perming service is one of the most towel consuming, water guzzling service in your salon, but owners are finding using Scrummi disposable towels are good for the budget and the environment.
No guest will be impressed by having an over-washed, stained towel wrapped around their shoulders, yet regularly replacing quality cotton towels is painfully expensive and adds up to a mountain of waste. It’s even more of a burden when a salon specializes in towel-demanding chemical services. Salon icon and entrepreneurial whizz Janine Jarman, the power behind Hairroin Salon in LA and Founder of Curl Cult, one of the fastest growing texture service systems around, knew she needed an alternative.
Texture services use lots of towels. It’s just the way with such an intensive service. According to Elvira Cardenas, director of operations at Curl Cult, it could be as many as 10 per guest even though Curl Cult uses 17 gallons less water than a traditional perm as it doesn’t need such exhaustive rinsing. Inevitably at Hairrion Salon, the birthplace of Curl Cult, texture services are popular, with up to three booked each day, so the salon was churning through towels at an alarming rate.
“There was a lot of scrambling about for clean towels and keeping the shelves stocked,” says Elvira. “And even though Curl Cult is the most sustainable texture service system currently available, not every towel survived the treatment.”
Curl Cult offers a refreshing alternative to the strong fumes and water-intensive processes of traditional perms, plus it is paraben, sulfate surfactant and thio-free. It is fully vegan, using pea protein and PisumProtex technology. But it still needs to be effective and that means chemicals. And chemicals can shorten the lifespan of a towel, which must then be replaced. Discovering biodegradable disposable towels was a revelation for Janine and not just because it was cheaper than constantly replacing damaged cotton towels.
“Janine suffers from sensitivity in her hands so for her disposable towels are softer and much gentler to use. She realized that would translate to hair and would be so much better for curls. They don’t damage hair post-treatment as you blot and wrap rather than rub. They soak up the right amount of moisture without disturbing the newly formed texture and curls,” says Elvira.
Curl Cult founder Janine Jarman says Scrumm towels soak up the right amount of moisture without disturbing the newly formed texture.
Bringing in disposables meant fewer towels being thrown away and replaced as well as a reducing burden of laundry and the over-use of water. But Janine wasn’t prepared to exchange one unsustainable system for another and so she researched disposables and found Scrummi, the most biodegradable option. Towels used in perming cannot be recycled, but Scrummi towels will decompose completely within 100 days in a landfill.
“Curl Cult was developed to be as environmentally responsible as current technology allows,” continues Elvira. “We use PisumProtex, an advanced pea-based and plex system to manipulate the disulphide bonds that create whatever hair texture the guest wants and because we neutralize over top, we eliminate the laborious rinsing and blotting process and save up to 15 gallons of water per service. Plus, our manufacturing process ensures there is no water waste. So it was important for us to partner with a sustainable disposable towel brand.”
As a single Scrummi costs no more than laundering a cotton towel, they’ve proved a winner beyond Hairroin Salon and are being adopted by Curl Cult salons all over the country because they cut the churn of towels and they help the stylist deliver what the guest longs for – lively, shapely, undamaged texture and curls.
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