Marco Pelusi: Inspired by Color

Celebrity colorist Marco Pelusi discusses the concept behind his line of collagen-based products for color treated hair.

When celebrity colorist Marco Pelusi opened Pelusi Hair Studio in West Hollywood, CA, in 2005, he always knew that he wanted to create a showplace for his own product system for color treated hair. After having personally worked in-house at two Italian hair color manufacturers, he didn’t want to carry anyone else’s retail products at his own studio. And as the nephew of Pittsburgh hairdresser Philip Pelusi, who developed his own products in the 1970s, this talent and ability clearly runs in the family. Within two years, the first Marco Collagen Color Guard Haircare products (a shampoo and a conditioner) came out in 2007 and the line has only continued to grow.

“After having created color and color care products, I told my chemist I wanted to create my own special hair care formulas to prevent premature color fade,” Pelusi says. “We worked on several formulas together, and the ones I liked the most contained a form of collagen. So we decided collaboratively to add collagen to every product – and that’s what keeps the color from fading.”

In addition to two shampoos and two conditioners, Pelusi’s line also includes a gel, spray, gloss and pomade. Each product contains his breakthrough proprietary technology – Collagen Color Guard – which incorporates a special blend of naturally occurring collagen, hair keratin, silk amino acids, and hydrolyzed wheat proteins that carefully work together to repair, restore and rebuild damaged sites on the hair shaft. Classified as USP, his products utilize natural and pharmaceutical grade ingredients: the purest deionized water, antioxidant oils that include French lavender, apricot, rosemary, clove, peppermint and grapefruit to soothe, condition and heal hair.

Several of Pelusi’s celebrity clients swear by his products, including Carol Alt, who loves his signature Marco Anti Frizz Leave-In Conditioner and featured his product system on her Fox TV show A Healthy You. The leave-in replenishes the hair’s own natural reserves to boost condition, color longevity, tone and vitality. It also tames coarse hair and enhances natural curls and waves.

Pelusi describes the development of his product line as “a passion and a healthy obsession.” It took him several years to work on it with research, testing, experience, trial and error, and so forth, and he has more products in the works. “I’m working on an ‘everything-free’ shampoo that is gluten-free as well,” he says. “This shampoo will be perfect for anyone with a smoothing treatment as well. We’ve got a fabulous formula and we’ll be bottling it over the summer. Stay tuned!”

For more information, visit marcopelusi.com.