Stop Being A Hair “Product Junkie!” ZiliZ App Shares Hair Advice And A Place To Swap Products For Brown Curly Girls!

By Delaina Dixon | September 30, 2020 | Beauty

Got hair issues? One new app is determined not only to solve them but give black and brown women a safe online space to talk hair, exchange products and build their haircare businesses with interested consumers. Welcome to ZiliZ.co!

DivaGalsDaily spoke with Alois Monger, CEO and co-founder of this new app/site, who gave us the 411 on why Ziliz was born, what it has to offer and of course, how it works! Read on to get all the information you need to make ZiliZ a part of your life.

What are some of the biggest hair issues black and brown women face?

For millions of ethnic and multi-ethnic women now choosing to embrace the beauty of their crown in 2020, it is still seen as unprofessional in a number of workplaces. The major brands in the over $500 billion beauty and haircare industry mostly ignore the space. As a result, it’s a daily struggle to find the right product or regimen or find hair care insights.

Is this how and why did ZiliZ get started?

Yes! We began by conducting an initial customer discovery survey, which netted nearly 250 anonymous respondents. We had set out to validate the initial idea of a marketplace to buy, sell and swap hair products, given a number of black and brown women are forced to be what’s termed as “product junkies” — trying out several different products to figure out what works given that their space is mostly ignored. Survey respondents told us they wanted hair care recommendations (products and regimens) as well as hair care insights/education: i.e. figuring out what to do with their hair and what would work best. Meanwhile, my co-founder Annette “Annie” Grotheer had roughly 17 products and was cycling through only nine. She wondered how to get some extra cash from that extra product stash, which gave us that idea.

Tell us about the platform: how does it work?

We set out to build a beauty and hair care community to democratize beauty by empowering ethnic hair. The community is a mobile-first platform that will offer personalized recommendations and social shopping allowing the selling/buying/trading of products while also empowering black and brown artisan/boutique hair-care entrepreneurs — stylists, brands, etc. — a platform given the lack of ownership of the product supply by this community. It’ll provide AI-curated recommendations of products and regimens as well as insights personalized to each member of the community-specific hair type and/or concerns, plus a community providing a support network along the hair journey, all driven by each member of the community’s profile and activities on the platform. Eventually, the platform will also support service bookings.

What kind of advice and products can we find on ZiliZ now?

Given it’s a peer-to-peer marketplace, what’s on the platform is driven by the members of the community, but as a Curl Community the focus is on hair types 2A through 4C: wavy (2A – 2C), curly (3A – 3C) and coily/kinky (4A – 4C) hair.

What are some of the future goals of Ziliz that will help black women truly have control over their hair and products?

Right now we’ve only built out the marketplace functions, and only on IOS in the U.S. Next, we’ll be building in the personalized recommendation engine using AI, as well as building Android and web versions.

Where can we sign up!

Join and help us build the community by downloading the app at apps.apple.com/us/app/ziliz. You may also subscribe at ziliz.co and follow us on Instagram @ziliz.co.