If Prose Were Our Client: How Personalization Became a Commodity and What to Do Now

Disclaimer: This is a hypothetical brand analysis based entirely on publicly available information. Prose is not a TTGC client. This article reflects TTGC's professional perspective on publicly observable brand and marketing opportunities.

A smart Prose brand strategy personalized haircare plan has to face one hard truth. Personalization used to be Prose's edge. Now it is the price of entry. Prose launched in 2017 with a simple, strong idea. You take a quiz. You get a custom formula made just for your hair. It felt like magic at the time. By 2026, the magic is normal. Function of Beauty, Formulate, and others all offer custom hair care too. So the quiz alone no longer wins. The question is what does.

Here is what TTGC would do.

What Prose Gets Right

Prose did not just sell shampoo. It sold the feeling of being understood.

The quiz is the brand's best moment. It is deep and serious. Prose asks about more than 85 factors. Hair type. Scalp. Water. Climate. Even your zip code. The team came out of the beauty industry and built a made-to-order model with no shelf inventory. Each order is mixed for one person. That is a real product, not a marketing trick.

The brand voice is warm and smart. The formulas skip sulfates and parabens. The site explains what goes in and why. The unboxing feels personal, with your name on the bottle. For a first-time buyer, the whole thing feels like care.

So the core is strong. The science is real. The problem is not the product. The problem is timing. The brand's best moment happens once, at the very start, and then it goes quiet.

The Gap That's Costing Them

Think about the Prose journey. The quiz is the peak. It is the moment you feel seen. Then the product ships. Then... not much. The bottles arrive every month. The brand goes quiet between orders. The one thing that made Prose special, the feeling of being known, fades after the first box.

This is the core gap. Personalization is a promise about a relationship. But Prose treats it like a single event. The quiz learns a lot about you on day one. The brand does little visible learning after that. Your hair changes with the seasons. Your routine changes. Your goals change. A truly personal brand would keep up. Right now, the buyer has to log in and update the quiz themselves. Most never do.

The category caught up while this gap stayed open. Function of Beauty offers a shorter quiz and a wide range of products. Formulate builds each formula from scratch. The "custom hair care" idea is now a crowded shelf, not a lonely peak. When every brand says "made for you," the words stop meaning much.

There is also a search gap. People type "Prose vs Function of Beauty" and "is Prose worth it" all the time. Plenty of third-party blogs answer those questions. Prose does not own that conversation. The brand that knows the most about its own formulas is mostly absent from the page where the choice gets made. So reviewers decide the story, and the brand reacts to it.

The result is clear. A brand built on knowing you better than anyone goes silent at the exact moments that would prove it.

What TTGC Would Do

The TTGC plan has three parts. Extend personalization past the quiz. Win the comparison search. Build an ingredient-transparency layer that proves the science.

Part 1: Make the relationship learn over time.

The quiz should be the start of a conversation, not the end. TTGC would build personalization into the whole journey. After each order, ask one short question. Is your scalp less dry this month? Did the new formula help with frizz? Use the answer to tweak the next batch. Send a seasonal check-in when the weather shifts, because dry winter air changes hair. Show the buyer how their formula has evolved over the year. This turns a static subscription into a living relationship. It also makes the formula better, which is the whole point. The brand that keeps learning is very hard to leave.

Part 2: Own the comparison search.

Buyers compare Prose to Function of Beauty before they buy. Right now, other sites write those comparisons. Prose should write the best one. TTGC would build honest, useful comparison content that wins on substance: quiz depth, formula method, ingredient quality, and results. Not spin. A clear, fair guide to how custom hair care actually differs. A brand confident in its science can afford to teach the buyer how to judge it. That guide earns the click and the trust at the same time.

Part 3: Build the ingredient-transparency layer.

Prose has a real story about what goes into each bottle and why. That story is underused as content. TTGC would build a deep, searchable ingredient layer. What each active does. Why Prose picked it for your profile. What the research says. This content feeds search for terms like "best ingredients for dry scalp" and "what helps frizzy hair." It also backs the personalization promise with proof. Custom is just a word until you can see the reason behind every choice.

The metric that proves it works: repeat orders climb. Lifetime value climbs. And branded search shifts toward "Prose results" and away from "is Prose worth it." That means the promise is landing past day one.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How is Prose different from Function of Beauty?

A: Both brands make custom hair care from a quiz, but the depth differs. Prose's quiz weighs more than 85 factors, including hair type, scalp, climate, and even your location, and ships monthly. Function of Beauty uses a shorter quiz focused on hair type and goals, and ships less often. Formulate, another rival, builds each formula from the ground up using around 25 data points. The short version: Prose offers the deepest personalization on paper. The open question for any buyer is whether that depth shows up in the result. That is exactly why clear comparison content matters.

Q: When did Prose launch and who started it?

A: Prose launched in 2017. It was founded by a team that included Arnaud Plas, with backgrounds spanning the beauty industry, formulation, and technology. The company built a made-to-order model with no shelf inventory. Each order is mixed for one customer based on quiz answers. The brand helped popularize the personalized beauty category, which has since grown crowded as other brands added their own custom offerings.

Q: Is personalized hair care actually worth it?

A: It can be, but the value depends on fit and follow-through. A custom formula that fits your hair and scalp can beat a generic product made for an average head of hair. The catch is that your needs change over time. A custom routine only stays custom if the brand keeps adjusting it. The brands that win are the ones that treat personalization as an ongoing relationship, not a one-time quiz. That is the gap most of the category, including the pioneers, has not yet closed.