Dublin hair tycoon taking the US by storm
A BLANCHARDSTOWN hair-extension business has secured deals with 400 US salons and signed up celebrity customers including supermodels Kendall Jenner, Gigi Hadid and Ashley Graham as it pushes into North America.
Easilocks is a family business based in Dublin, run by Shane O’Sullivan (30), who learned the ropes at his father’s Dublin salon.
The company is doubling in size every year, he told the Sunday Independent, and is being namechecked by many of the world’s biggest names in fashion and beauty.
When hair extensions gained popularity in the mid-2000s, the O’Sullivans’ salon found it difficult to source quality products. So they created their own brand, Easilocks, using 100pc human hair ethically sourced from Asia, India and Russia.
Their extensions are applied using tiny copper cylinders which negates the needs for heat, glue or sewing, thus protecting customers’ own hair.
More recently Easilocks also developed a range of synthetic clip-in extensions, a line fronted by Geordie Shore star Charlotte Crosby.
The company launched in Ireland and then moved into the UK, where it now supplies around 2,000 salons.
Six months ago Easilocks began a concerted push into the US by attending trade shows, meeting large retail buyers and establishing relationships with celebrity stylists and their clients.
O’Sullivan has just returned from Cosmo Prof, one of the biggest hair and beauty trade shows in the US.
Stylist clients include Andrew Fitzsimons, who has used Easilocks extensions on Ashley Graham — who this year became the first ever plus-sized model to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit issue. Other celebrity stylist clients include Priscilla Valles, who works with Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears and US comedian Chelsea Handler, and Jennifer Yepez, who works with supermodel Gidi Hadid.
Easilocks now employs 30 people between Ireland, the UK and the US. Revenue this year will be around £5m (€5.9m), O’Sullivan said.
It has been hit recently by currency fluctuations and falling UK consumer sentiment in the aftermath of the Brexit, since the majority of its business is in the UK.
“We have definitely been hit. But we are established enough that we can manage,” said O’Sullivan. “It would have had a much bigger impact had it happened in our early days. I really feel for Irish exporters to the UK who were only starting out when it happened.”