Unilever has closed Aquis, the microfiber hair towel brand from the co-founders of K18, in the United States, but it will continue to be available in Asia.
Described by the publication Women’s Wear Daily in 2018 as “the company that changed how millions dry their hair,” Aquis put towels and turbans designed to accelerate hair drying on the beauty industry map. Not too long ago, it was sold in many of the world’s leading beauty retailers, including Sephora, Ulta Beauty, Revolve, Urban Outfitters, Nordstrom, QVC, Violet Grey, Anthropologie and Free People.
Unilever picked up the brand for its prestige beauty division last year as part of the transaction valued at between $500 million and $600 million that gave it K18, the 5-year-old biotechnology-powered haircare brand with bestseller Leave-In Molecular Repair Hair Mask. However, the consumer packaged goods conglomerate didn’t mention Aquis in its announcement of the deal, signaling it was focusing its attention on K18, which it reported last week registered double-digit growth in 2024.
Under CEO Hein Schumacher, Unilever has been streamlining its operations and fortifying power brands that are profitable and known to consumers. In late 2023, publication Business of Fashion cited sources close to K18 that its retail sales for the year were expected to be $300 million, increasing to $410 million in 2024. Aquis has never approached that size. An estimate in WWD had it on pace to reach $25 million to $30 million in 2018 sales.
While Aquis was increasingly sidelined as K18 took off, it brought former married couple Suveen Sahib and Britta Cox into the beauty industry and provided a vehicle for them to forge relationships subsequently pivotal for K18. Prior to Sahib, a serial entrepreneur who co-founded video collaboration platform TeleportHq, and Cox starting Aquis in 1990, Cox worked in the ski industry, where moisture-wicking fabric was a staple, and wondered whether the fabric could be applied to hair to extract water from it.
She teamed up with a microfiber company in Japan to create Aquis’s combination of polyester and nylon to cut hair drying time in half, a trick for keeping the hair healthy because leaving hair wet for extended periods can damage it. In 2018, Aquis branched out from its hair towels and turbans to a full range of liquid haircare products it called Aquis Prime.
Reflecting on Aquis and K18 in 2022, Sahib told media outlet Glossy that K18 was launched separately from Aquis because the two brands’ product architecture was different and K18 diverged from Aquis in its distribution path. Similar to Olaplex, the bond-building haircare brand that went public in 2021, K18 zeroed in on the salon channel and leveraged hairstylists to spread the word in advance of entering retail with Sephora in 2023. Aquis achieved prominent retail distribution before K18 hit the market.
In 2020, beauty and wellness investment firm True Beauty Ventures made its first investment in Aquis and K18 as part of a series B round. Springboard Growth Capital was also part of the round. Preceding that investment, Aquis had raised $11 million in funding from Guthy Renker Ventures, FAB Co-Creation Studio Ventures, NewBound Venture Capital, Suttona Capital and others.
In 2022, Aquis rebranded for the TikTok era, according to Glossy. It jettisoned liquid haircare to focus on Aquis Flip, a $50 hair drying towel that won a Best of Beauty from Allure in 2023, along with a cheaper towel and wrap priced at $25 each. Originally, its towels were priced at $21.
But the rebrand was too little too late for the brand. Hair towels and turbans proliferated across the price spectrum, and as K18 overshadowed Aquis, its innovation didn’t stay on pace with the beauty industry’s quick trend cycles. The Crown Affair, Act+Acre, Ceremona and Bread Beauty Supply offer versions of hair towels at Sephora priced from $30 to $55. On Amazon, there are no fewer than a dozen brands selling hair towels as low as under $10. Aquis products can still be purchased from the giant e-tailer.
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