Located in West Palm Beach, New Image Labs Corporation is a leader in the hair replacement industry. With a well-established domestic and international client base, their product line includes tools, products, and hair pieces to help address hair thinning and loss.  

“The understanding of how to solve the problem helps stylists start the conversation about hair loss,” says New Image President Oscar Urzola. “When those clients sit in their chair, stylists know they have something to offer them so they can open up about it and change the stigma that exists in this category. Our tools and services can change lives.”

Urzola spoke with MODERN SALON about how New Image provides something for every phase of hair loss and about their newest innovation, Luxia Artiss Paris.

MS: Tell us a bit about the background of New Image Labs

OU: We began in Canada in the 1960s and we have been a pioneer in the hair replacement industry for a long time. In the 1980s, we opened an office in the US and then one in Hong Kong. We are in 42 countries and we needed a shipping hub out of the Far East.

I became president in 2014, and I have seen the good, the bad and the ugly in this industry. I always had a dream that we would find a way to bridge the gap between the hair replacement industry and the beauty industry, which has all the traffic.  Every day, people go to hair salons to get a haircut, get highlights or color, while the hair replacement industry has to dig and spend a lot of money to get new clients. People with hair loss or hair thinning tend to go to the hair salons, first, but the beauty industry doesn’t always know what to do with them.

Sometimes the stylist will refer that person to a dermatologist or a hair transplant doctor but in my world, the hair salons could really boost their income by knowing what to do with those clients. We can support that type of business because we offer something to address every phase of hair loss.

MS: Can you walk us through how you approach those different stages?

OU: Phase one is prevention and we address it with the perfect tools to do skin, hair, and scalp analysis from Aram Huvis Americas. We have devices offering the highest level of magnification and high-resolution imaging to make accurate assessments of scalp and hair health. Using these tools, stylists can come at the issue with the best technology and with the greatest understanding. Many of the top brands in haircare use our cameras because they want to address the issue in the proper way.

Once we determine what the issue is then we offer phase two which is scalp and follicular health through our scalp therapy system, ProGen Active Care. It addresses buildup, sensitivity, oily scalp, irritated scalp—you name it. We believe there is no such thing as bad hair but there is a deprived scalp. When the scalp is suffering, everything else will suffer.

Phase three is when we repair and fix the hair and that is when our Nutrifuse products come into play. They were developed to restore the hair used in our hair systems. When you process hair for extensions, you put it through a chemical bath to remove some of the cuticle and to make it tangle-free. But this leaves it in not-great shape so we formulated Nutrifuse to deposit a new layer of keratin into the processed hair. We’ve had such great success using it on our hair systems hair that we introduced it for salon use and the feedback has been outstanding. Damaged, stressed, and chemically-treated hair sees incredible improvement with these ingredients and formulas.

Then, phase four is New Image and our extensive line of versatile hair effects including our newest launch, Luxia Artiss Paris.

MS: Tell us about how you developed Luxia Artiss and what makes it special.

OU: Over two and a half years ago, I was speaking to someone about my vision of a product that featured the very best quality hair with a very unique method of processing it. They said I was a dreamer and that either I make something that has never been done before or it will be just like all the others out in the market. So I did; we have created the best hair extensions because we have figured out how to process them without damage. Instead of chemicals to strip the cuticle, we are using an osmosis treatment which is the same process that transforms well water to sweet water. It is a slow and secret process which is so unique but it preserves the hair quality, beautifully. We could speed up if we wanted to use chemicals but we don’t. When you feel and see our Luxia Artiss hair, it is as good as it gets.

MS: How are you launching Luxia to the market?

OU: We have already launched in Europe, in China, Dubai and now we are launching in the US with the help of MODERN SALON. We will also attend trade shows and we will come to salons to do one-on-one trainings. It needs that type of attention.

Luxia is for the salons that want the best products but they also know the best isn’t inexpensive. It’s also for salons that want to achieve the greatest results for their clients. With Luxia, if you order a hair tip of sixteen inches, all the hair is sixteen inches. If you order our twenty inch hair tip, every hair is twenty inches. If hair extensions aren’t the same length and the hair is mixed, it is more work for the stylist to achieve the proper density because they are always fighting those shorter hairs sticking out.

I have seen basically everything in the hair replacement industry and I didn’t want to have something like all the others. I wanted to have that V12 car with four turbos, I wanted the best, and with Luxia, we have it.