The HairDini Story
In 1992, after owning a beauty salon, I started to collaborate with another salon as one of their top stylists. Coloring and up do’s became my specialty. I taught various classes for the salon, one of them being the art of style. As the French twist and the classic bun styles are both difficult to explain and to execute I took the information and produced a tool on my sewing machine that would make this style much easier to achieve. It was a complete success.
As fast as I could produce the tools on my sewing machine at home, I brought them into the salon and used them up. Although I had sewn all my life, the foam material became difficult to work with due to its thickness and I knew at that point they needed to be mass marketed. The tools were so easy to use that even non-professionals could them with ease. While living in Dallas I became acquainted with the beauty industry through an acquaintance who was a local beauty representative. He was an associate of Brad Livingston, a marketing manager who promoted the Topsey Tail ™ on TV Infomercials. This connection led to many business partnerships including manufacturing and representation and started the year long event that led to numerous successful infomercials. The infomercials, led to more partnerships, marketing, representation, and brand name recognition with a large market presence.
In the spring of 1994 we produced the most successful of the HairDini infomercials, a 30-minute presentation using the Original HairDini. We hit the jackpot with this and women all over the country were purchasing the HaiDini Magic Styling Wand in mass quantities. Now armed with representation and a wonderful public relations associate, I found myself on TV talk shows such as the Home Show, Oprah, Donohue, Rolanda, and CNBC.
The Donohue Show was where I realized how exciting the HairDini adventure had become. Upon arriving in New York, I was picked up at JFK in a Limousine and taken to one of the finest hotels in New York City. The following day, yet another limousine picked me up and took me directly to the television studio where the Donohue show was being filmed. Phil Donohue was one of my favorite talk show hosts and I didn’t want to believe the rumors that had been circulating that show was ending. The topic that day was women who had made money in various creative ways, and it was quite a line up. There were women on the show who made money in cooking contests, radio contests and even one woman who was a dominatrix. As he introduced me as “Denie Schach, the inventor of the HairDini, which everyone has seen on the popular HairDini commercials”, I was thrilled and amazed.
For my segment I demonstrated the HairDini wand on my PR representative Rebecca Brooks whose fine hair was easily placed into a beautiful Candy Cane twist. We gave several successful demonstrations and explained to America how easy the HairDini was to use. Following the show, our pictures were taken with Phil Donohue and I told him how much I admired his wife Marlo Thomas and I gave him a Teeni HairDini just for her. Shortly after the show we found out that the rumors were correct, and that I had been part of the last show hosted by Phil Donohue. The show is gone, but he will remain as one of the nations’ most wholesome and engaging talk show hosts I have ever watched.
QVC has been one of my most lucrative and long lasting business relationships. It has led to a 17-year association selling at least 15 different hair tools on the shopping channel, which is featured in the U.S.A. , Canada, and London. The first time I appeared on QVC was the most momentous event and I will never forget it, we sold 7,000 units in 10 minutes. It was all I could do to concentrate because of my nerves, so I just kept talking and demonstrating only occasionally remembering to breathe. My PR Rep, Rebecca Brooks and Marketing Rep Stephanie Stewart were cheering me on in the studio. The initial air time was filmed in the old QVC Studio in Philadelphia before the new studios were built.
It was beyond my imagination at the time that this would lead me to many on the air segments featuring my future products such as Teeni HairDini, TieDini, BraiDini, BeaDini, PicDini, ClipDini, and recently in 2007 the HairDini2. The ongoing relationship with QVC has given me an experience which has led to the recognition of the HairDini product line and made me a well known guest of the famous QVC shopping channel. I am now very comfortable in front of the camera and I love to demonstrate my products and the many tricks that HairDini’s can do for women of all ages and hair types.
At one of my first department store promotions at Macy’s, in New York, the women were standing in line to watch me demonstrate how to create fabulous hair styles such as the French twist, and the bun. Again, at the New York Instructional Hair Show, professional women stood in line with HairDini Magic Styling Wands in hand wanting to resell them at their hair salons and soon the HairDini Magic Styling Wand became a household name.
From 1994 to 1996, the company produced five new products: Teeni HairDini, BraiDini, Mighty HairDini, The Big Tease styling comb, and the TieDini. This was the most exciting time in my life, I felt as though I had traveled at hyper speeds across the hair universe. My knowledge of hairstyling and my imagination gave birth to a new talent, the inventing of tools that made my job easier and much more fun. I saw the latest trends in style, and produced tools to help me execute them in a more efficient manner. The versatility of these tools and the adaptability of them to accommodate the variety of hair lengths and textures, makes it so easy sell to mothers, daughters, and upwardly mobile women in executive positions. Age or station doesn’t matter and from the Prima ballerina to the 6-year old gymnast, everyone can have great buns.
EPI INC produced the video and partnered with TRI Star Corp. together they promoted the product heavily on television. We ran a 30-minute infomercial which was unheard of for a $19.95 product. The TV spot played in every state and eventually Canada, UK, and even Japan followed. The success of the show produced many opportunities including an association with Accessory Lady Stores. In 1995, Accessory Lady featured The HairDini instructional video shown in their front window displays. This was very successful sales approach. Women loved watching the entertaining and instructional video and were lured into the store to purchase the HairDini which included the VHS instructional video showing the various styles. Hair styles such as the Candy cane, the Genie and the perfect Ballerina Bun were being worn out the store. We even had a jingle: “Twist it up on a Saturday night” and it could be heard across all the shopping malls in America and Canada.
Claire's Stores soon followed.
Selling our versatile product with an instructional video was unheard of in the early 90’s. I heard many stories of HairDini slumber parties with little girls each of who were able to create all the different styles. Retailers noticed that the representative had an easy sale into Macy’s, Dillard’s and other upper end department stores. Wal-Mart had a promotion that carried a VHS tape of the instructions which taught how to obtain the various hairstyles. I have always believed teaching with visual aids and written instruction makes it much easier for a beginner to learn. As an instructor, I wanted to clearly explain the hair styles and an instructional video was the perfect venue and was instrumental in making the HairDini a recognizable product and a brand name.
The creation of this video also gave longevity to the continued promotion of all the Haridini products. Years of devotion to the HairDini vision has helped me invent products and carved out a career in that arena. This is a career I have prepared and trained for all my life. I love bringing my different hair tools to the public market. In 2001, I designed my first tri-pronged clip. The ClipDini started a new series of successful tools. The ClipDini led to a Poofdini, which is an easy to use styling tool that will clip on to most barrettes to add volume to the hair. These new products have led to more time on QVC and have been a great hit for seven years. Claire’s and their affiliates also loved the ClipDini. It was easy to manufacture and flew off their shelves. It has been one of the most successful branded items that Claire’s carries. Today, after 7 years the ClipDini is still on their shelves next to Mega ClipDini. CBI Distributing Corp., owning Claire’s and affiliates, have carried at least one of my products since 1995. They carried the TV offer $19.95 with video, etc.
Women’s magazines were also anxious to include information on my hair tools and techniques. Glamour was the first magazine to include the HairDini in its section of upcoming new products. Several magazines followed such as: Mademoiselle, Marie Claire, Seventeen, YM, and Today’s Black Women to name a few and all have showed interest in the many products HairDini offers. Most of the Hair magazines who love featuring the styles that could be executed with one product followed suit. Even newspapers such as The New York Times have written about the HairDini.
People Magazine covered The HairDini Story in 1999 when Tom Hanks was featured on the cover. He is one of my most favorite actors. There I was an immigrant from Holland in box of foam covered wired hair gizmos, in one of the most read magazines of the time for all to see. Soon after the publication, I was contacted by a producer from the Oprah show which was a huge wow for me. The Oprah show was looking for women millionaires and was doing a show about how each of their ideas that had become a million dollar business while they multi-tasked, handling kids and homemaking and success at the same time. I didn’t physically appear on the show but was featured as an example. They played a portion of my commercial and showed photos of me in my home.
In reality I really never participated in a million dollar life style. The money I made was substantial, but never grandiose. The financial story and lessons associated with the HairDini product could be a book of what to do and especially what not to do in a creative business venture. It is a very complicated and twisted set of events in itself – stay tuned.
2008 brings me to the creation of many new products, including the new HairDini 2 which had its debut on QVC in 2007 and is marked to Claire’s and its affiliates. The Mega ClipDini a product that is used with thick and very long hair is continuing to be a great success in Claire’s. My newest product, CURLDINI©, is the latest in the line of HairDini magic styling tools which is ‘on a roll’ today!
