Ep. 33: Hydra Active’s moisturising sleep suits care for your skin Ankit Podcast

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Ep. 33: Hydra Active’s moisturising sleep suits care for your skin

In the first episode, we talk to Harry Zalk, director of Hydra Active and chief commercial officer at its parent company, Matrix.

Jessica Owen
Hello. My name is Jessica Owen, and I am the Deputy digital editor at WTI N, and this is the WTI N podcast. You cast, 2020. Has been a challenging year for everyone so far. Therefore, for this series, I'll be exploring the innovative ways in which companies are using Textiles and Apparel to improve our health and well being. This week, I am joined by Harry Zalk, who is a director at Hydra Active and Chief Commercial Officer of its parent company, matrix, Harry talks about the company's moisturizing sleep suit, from the initial idea to the micro encapsulation process And the response the company has had so far.

Well, good afternoon, Harry, and welcome and thank you very much for joining me today. So how are you?

Harry Zalk
Yeah, very well, thank you under the circumstances, yes, I

Jessica Owen
know how. So where are you based? Is it? Has it been quite a difficult time, like everyone else, or,

Harry Zalk
well, it started. I'm based in North London, so in East Finchley, and our office is down in south London, in Clapham. So it was originally very nice not to be commuting, wasting an hour each way every day, but I have two young children at home. So what was a novelty at the beginning has become slightly more logistically difficult, particularly with the summer holidays. So still enjoy, but okay,

Jessica Owen
making the most of it, as most people are, yeah, otherwise, so you're here today with me then to talk about hydroactive And so you guys, from what I understand anyway, have created the world's first moisturizing sleep suits. So do you mind just explaining what you mean by this? 

Harry Zalk
Absolutely, I think, to caveat that it's the world's first moisturizing sleep suit for the design for the airline industry, just because it was difficult for us to scour the entire planet and make sure that it was genuinely the first in all industries. So what we mean by this is that it's ultimately a pajama which has been micro encapsulated with billions of tiny capsules of active, moisturizing ingredients. And essentially means that when you're wearing the product, and particularly when you sleep in the product, through friction, you will break these micro capsules, and it will slowly release the moisturizing benefits of those active ingredients,

Jessica Owen
right? Okay, well, I'll talk about the science behind it and everything in a bit. But first of all, I mean, you just said there that this is mainly for the airline industry. So tell me a bit about when the company was founded, who was sort of behind the idea and and sort of the airlines that first got on board with you guys.

Harry Zalk
Yeah, absolutely. So matrix is 25 years old this coming year. So we were founded in 1996 by a chap called Charlie Bradshaw, and we still today are 100% owned by Charlie. Hydroactive is a brand that we created about three years ago. It was kind of my brain child. I have a textiles background, and matrix is a big product design and manufacturing business to the airline and retail industries. So we were supplying already a lot of the airline industry with things like moisturizers, a lot of the branded amenity kits that you get in first and business class, some bedding items, etc. But we'd never really ventured into the first class pajama area of the airline industry. As I said, my background was textiles, and we were at the time, had quite a big retail clothing business in sleepwear and lingerie. And it struck me one day that we had these incredible airline customers who were buying enormous volumes of products that we created. And one of the big challenges on board an airplane, of course, is that you have this very dry air. And so we had all of this manufacturing capability on skincare, which we were using to make these lovely little minis that were going into amenity kits. But we weren't in any way trying to benefit the passenger outside of just facial skincare. So with my background in textiles, with matrixes, background in manufacturing cosmetic items, I thought there's got to be an opportunity here to benefit the passenger more than just their hands and their face while they're on board the plane. And that was the beginning of a little seed of an idea that turned into hydroactive,

Jessica Owen
right? And so did you know about sort of micro encapsulation beforehand, and and was that sort of idea in your head already there, or did. You have to explore a few things before you sort of came up with what you now offer. I

Harry Zalk
don't think we joined the dots immediately on micro encapsulation. The idea was there around how we could ultimately overcome a passenger challenge. I think as any good innovation comes around, it's really about trying to solve a problem. But I was aware of micro encapsulation. And actually it's used in the cosmetics industry within liquids. It's used fairly extensively. And then upon some research as to how we might try to embed skin care properties into materials, then, you know, I got deeper and deeper into understanding how micro encapsulation works on fabrics, right?

Jessica Owen
And so, from what I understand then as well that I think Emirates, the airline, was probably your, the first people you joined up with. So do you mind just telling me a bit about that and the partnership? Absolutely.

Harry Zalk
So we created the hydroactive brand. We felt that that the innovation was so exciting that it it kind of deserved its own credible brand, rather than it just being a kind of white label product, as you'd call it in our world, where you put somebody else's name on it, and that gives it, gave us a platform to really talk about the technology, the safety aspects of it, and really give the product some personality. So we created a hydroactive brand. Obviously, we were pretty well known in the airline industry anyway, so it gave us an opportunity to take it to to market, I suppose, within our core industry. And we spoke with a number of airlines at the time, but the the people who kind of fell in love with it instantly and very quickly gobbled gobbled up the exclusive right to use it were, were Emirates. And of course, when Emirates come knocking, being one of the biggest and one of the, if not the best airline in the world, then it was hard to say no,

Jessica Owen
and as well. I mean, I've actually never been on an Emirates flight, unfortunately. But they, when you think of them, you sort of think of more luxurious flights and going from to on long haul sort of journey. So it does make sense, actually, when you're thinking that what you offer is a very well, it is a very luxurious sort of product. It's not something that everyone's going to pack on a flight. So it does make sense that they sort of wanted to partner up with you guys and sort of offer something a bit different, absolutely, and

Harry Zalk
it's a competitive advantage. You know, the customer experience and guest experience, or passenger experience, I suppose, as they call it on an airline, is is a big differentiator. And so, yes, you're right. Emirates are well known for their luxurious surroundings, the investments they have in their planes, but also the investment that they make into the products that you engage with on board the plane. So they really keen to have things that set them apart from their competitors. And hydroactive was an opportunity for that. I think it's important to mention though, that first and foremost, it's also a great pajama. So we wanted to make sure that it was a great pajama that had the benefits of moisturizing properties, and that it wasn't a moisturizing pajama that was, you know, frankly, quite cheap and horrible, but it just had these moisturizing benefits. It's also a really nice garment that then comes with additional benefits, that it really kind of takes care of your skin in this very dry environment while you

Jessica Owen
sleep. And so do customers actually get to keep these pajamas? Or do the airline wash them and then sort of reuse them like they do with other things that they offer?

Harry Zalk
They don't they give them away. Okay? Really, most airlines only give away pajamas in first class if they give them away at all. It's quite an expensive item to give a passenger every time they fly. So yes, Emirates give theirs away. I mean, as far as I understand, most airlines give them they're not they're not washed. Although our micro capsules are washed durable, so even after a passenger has taken them home, they can either use them at home for up to 15 washes. Or actually, they can continue using them in any air, any other air travel that they that they might partake. And again, it will continue to moisturize their skin for up to 15 washes. And

Jessica Owen
so let's have a look at the actual pajamas then, and how they work. So they are it's using a micro encapsulation technique. And I think you use nutrients and ingredients such as argon oil and sheer butter. So just explain to me, in a bit more depth how this actually works and what sort of the manufacturing and fabric construction process is like.

Harry Zalk
Yeah, so you essentially, there's two different kind of components to the product, right? There's the there's the garment itself, which is made in a very traditional way. It's no different to any other kind of garment manufacture. So you know, this particular product happens to be a cotton poly blend, has some elastane in the pan, for example, all of the things that you would expect in a good quality for PJ. You then have the micro and capsule. The micro capsules, which are. Made by a specialist chemical company. And what they're able to do, ultimately, using a kind of particularly special centrifugal process that's patented, is that you can create, you take a liquid, and it's always got to be a liquid oil. So it's that you have to go for skin care, oils, things that can be put into an oil format. And what happens when they're processed is that ultimately they create these billions and billions of little micro capsules which have a natural membrane that form around them during the centrifuge process. And so they are completely, I guess, enclosed and encased in this little membrane. So if you hypothetically put, you know, a barrel of microcapsules, and left them in the corner of a room for 20 years, they wouldn't evaporate because a they're oil based. And secondly, they've got these little, this little membrane around them. So they're very, very stable, which is a great thing. And it's not like a kind of water based application, where ultimately, in the long run, it's going to evaporate and not function. So you create these micro capsules. We chose to use argan oil and shea butter, which was a fantastic combination for really leaving your skin in a great condition. Both of those active ingredients really help soften skin and give that moisturizing feeling, plus shea butter has anti inflammatory benefits, and argan oil has natural antiseptic benefits. So, you know, we felt that this was really lovely combination and quite luxurious combination to make sure that your skin is nourished while you're flying. Then you take, ultimately, your microcapsules and you apply them to the fabric during the dyeing process of the garment or of the material. And at this time, you know, it's essentially an extra bathing process of the material as it's going through full manufacture. It gets wadded. Ultimately, the micro capsules get wadded into the material. And if you imagine that, you know, you've got the the knitted material with lots of tiny little pockets, you know, microscopic really pockets and indentations and all of the things that happen when you're when you're, you know, knitting materials together, the micro capsules get stuck, ultimately, into every little nook and cranny of the material, and they become quite embedded within that. And so what happens is, on first application, obviously they are absolutely full of the microcapsules. And as the garment is worn, you essentially break those microcapsules, but you don't break enough of them that that you exhaust its benefit and its properties. So we put a high enough concentrate of the micro capsules into the material that it can then ultimately last for 15 washes. And that, in you know, a nutshell, I suppose, is how the product is created.

Jessica Owen
Okay, well, it's very interesting. I mean, in my head, I'm sort of imagining a microscopic bubble wrap that you can't see it, which is sort of on the surface of these pajamas. And then they just pop slowly over time. I mean, I I assume that's sort of what it is like, what

Harry Zalk
it is, yeah. I mean, I suppose in a really, in another way of thinking of it is, it's like really posh scratch and sniff. So, you know that old scratch and sniff technology that's existed for years is a form of micro encapsulation. You know, it's a way of applying a fragrance to a paper and then it is owned. The fragrance is only released when you break the capsules by scratching it. So it's very similar to that. It's just its application onto Textiles is something that's a little newer, and it's been used by big global businesses, big global retailers around the world for different applications, slimming tights, fragrant slippers, you know, all kinds of wild and wacky products for the retail market. But we certainly haven't seen many moisturizing pajamas, and when we launched them, they were certainly the only ones that the airline industry were had launched, and we haven't really seen many, if any of them, in retail, either. So I wouldn't want to say legally that it's the only moisturizing pajama in the world, but certainly it's not particularly

Jessica Owen
common. And so have you tried them yourself? And what do you think of them? Yeah,

Harry Zalk
I have Yeah, and I love them. I think that what I find really lovely about the product and the thing that makes it fit for purpose, I suppose, for the reason it was grated, which is ultimately to sleep and to get a better night's sleep, is that it doesn't leave your skin in any way oily. We were worried when we were first applying the technology, though, of course, when you breaking oil capsules onto your skin, that ultimately it might soil the material. It might leave you feeling greasy. But when you break those capsules on your skin, and I really notice it when you rub your fingers together, is you can just feel a very fine silkiness to your skin. So it's quite subtle, but yeah, definitely when I wake up in the morning. I feel, firstly, it's a great pajama But secondly, your skin definitely just feels a little softer, little less dry. If you suffer from dry skin particularly, then I think you really notice the difference, and it very subtly looks after your skin when you're sleeping, particularly in that dry environment. And

Jessica Owen
so what's the feedback been like from people who have used them as well. What have other people thought? Yeah,

Harry Zalk
we've had fantastic feedback. Actually, it's won a few awards, like inter into industry awards, which is great to see that the industries recognize them. But also it had incredible press coverage. When first launched a few years ago, all corners of the globe were picking it up. This idea that Emirates were giving a moisturizing pajama away was a bit of a coup. And actually, passengers really love it. And again, I think it's 50% because they're great pajamas, and 50% because they have this additional product benefit. So we have multiple inquiries about people wanting to buy them. We matrix and hydroactive Don't sell directly to consumers, but you can buy them through the Emirates retail business. They have a website and a store in Dubai Airport, for example. So you find that people value them so much they want to come back and buy a second pair, or they buy the right pair for their wife or for their kids, etc. So yeah, it's had a really, really good consumer feedback, and I think the fact that they've been on board now for more than three years, which in the airline industry is quite rare. People tend to refresh their products more quickly than that is a testament to how much the customers

Jessica Owen
love it, definitely. So you said there that is it pretty much exclusive with Emma. Is there no plans to maybe get on board with other airlines in future. Yeah, I

Harry Zalk
mean, there obviously some of that's kind of contractual detail. So what probably legally won't really kind of go into all of the details, but yeah, ultimately, it's, it's currently exclusive, exclusively on Emirates. And you know, that is a long term partnership of ours, and something that, you know, we're very proud of. So there would be opportunities for it in certain areas, to go on other airlines, but I think we'd, you know, would really want to make sure that it was we were choosing the right partner, and nothing that would damage the value of the partnership that we already

Jessica Owen
have right understood. Now, I also wanted to ask you about some other other products, because I was having a look on your website, and it mentions that there's now hydroactive defense, and I think it's hydroactive Serenity. So what are these two products, and how are they? How are they slightly different?

Harry Zalk
Yeah, so defense is, is an antibacterial finish that we're able to apply to the materials in in a similar way, although there's a few different technological ways of applying antibacterial finishes to material. One of them is micro encapsulation, and another is using kind of a silver solution bath. And you know, particularly in this world of COVID and all of the kind of more antibacterial requirements that consumers have, then a natural level of defense that sits within textiles that are sitting on your skin is something that we think is very appealing to consumers. In fact, we actually launched that a few years ago. We didn't get a great deal of uptake at the beginning. I think it was considered a bit of a necessary application to material, but it turns out right now that it's probably in demand, and serenity is where we're really looking to use fragrance and aromatherapy as an experiential benefit to materials. So this might be where you have, like, a lavender infused eye mask. Or, you know, you have kind of a particular aroma therapy blend that could be applied to a part of a pajama, if not a whole pajama. So these were some additional lines that we wanted to add in for people to choose from if they wanted.

Jessica Owen
Well, like you said, there about COVID 19 that your hydroactive defense product, then that that's probably been, has it been sort of a game changer, I guess, for some people, now that they know about it, considering all the sort of risks with disease and viruses that are around at the moment, yeah,

Harry Zalk
it has. I think you know, what's interesting is the importance of being kind of authentic and it's antibacterial or antimicrobial, to be specific. So you know, it does mean that it will kill a great deal of bacteria that hits the material. But it's not necessarily antiviral, and there are the now beginning to be some antiviral technologies coming into materials. I've certainly seen it even coming through into high street retail and fashion. But it's a very new area of technology. And of course, claiming something to be antiviral is a is a very big claim. And you know, we're very we really want to make sure as an organization, that we're transparent and that we're authentic. So antiviral, I think, is something. Needs a lot more research. There are billions of viruses. So to call a material antiviral could be misleading to the consumer unless you're explicit about which viruses it kills and deters, and you may be giving false hope to a consumer that they're suddenly protected because they're wearing an antiviral pajama or sports top, only to find out that it's a virus that you know isn't going to harm them or damage them necessarily in that environment, and that it doesn't protect them against some viruses that might so, yeah, it's definitely, there's been a lot of interest in it. To answer your question more directly, I think that what people are really looking for, I think, is a bit of a silver bullet that maybe doesn't exist right now, just

Jessica Owen
looking away from sort of Coronavirus, I feel that in a the last few years this, people are becoming a lot more aware of sort of their health and well being, and, oh, I don't know, even people taking up things like yoga or meditation. So even if the pandemic hadn't hit, are you finding that people are becoming more increasingly interested in this sort of technology and sort of even what clothing can offer people. Yeah,

Harry Zalk
definitely. Technical textiles, I think, have become really important and really interesting, particularly, as you say, for wellness. I think performance athletes have got a long history of performance textiles, and there's some really interesting innovations in that space around using, for example, far infrared technology, which ultimately bounces the energy back into your into your bloodstream that you give off. So all of the heat that your body gives off is absorbed by a mineral that you can put within some strands of material, and it's then essentially sent back into your skin and then absorbed into your blood capillaries, and increases blood flow, which has two benefits. Number one is means you rest and recover better. Or if you're in a performance environment, it means that increases your oxygenation levels within your bloodstream, and therefore it can be a performance material as well. So there's some really exciting and interesting technical textile technologies that are coming to the fore at the moment, and some great companies out in the US doing some really interesting stuff that we've been researching and speaking with. So yeah, I can see it only becoming more important, and particularly as the claims testing gets better and as the scientific proof of all of this stuff is more tangible, then obviously the consumer benefit becomes more real.

Jessica Owen
With that in mind, do you think there's going to be quite a few new companies then coming out? 

Harry Zalk
That's a really good question. So what certainly how we see the landscape is that you've got quite a few R and D companies creating materials or ingredients that you would add to materials or yarns that you would add into materials, and they tend to be driving the innovation, rather than the brand, the final garment brand. And then what you would normally find is that there is then a brand, garment brand or retailer that picks up that technology and uses it within a range or a line or a brand that they create. So that is, I think, ultimately, going to continue to be the NPD process within technical textiles, you know, you tend to have these passionate scientists and inventors that create these things at a at a yarn level. Hopefully the more success that the market sees. And I think people at Under Armor, have you know, been big pioneers of technical textiles. The more comes mainstream, then the more widely accepted it will be. From a consumer point of view, I think it's still quite niche at the moment, if I were honest. But again, the more that the Under Armours of this world make it really democratize technical textiles and make it affordable to all the more kind of accepting consumers will be of it, and probably the more trusting as well, because some of them have got some quite large claims that sometimes people, I think, struggle to believe. So yeah, I think it's going to be a long road, but it wouldn't surprise me in the next five years or so, if many, many more of us are purchasing garments that have a technical benefit.

Jessica Owen
And, I mean, do you find with your brand and maybe just other news stories that you hear that people are a bit wary of testing these things like, I mean, I imagine with your garments, for example, that there's no, it's not like smart textiles, where you've got, I don't know, conductive yarns or a circuit board involved. So there's, it's not going to short circuit on your anything like that. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. But do you find that people are wary and scared to try new things? Or do you actually think the customers are more accepting than we then we give them credit for

Harry Zalk
really good question. I think they're more sceptical than they are scared. So it's probably similar to skincare, you know, particularly anti aging skincare is that I'm sure, back in the day when you know, the first skincare company came out probably hundreds of years ago and claimed that, you know, a cream that you put on. A face could help, you know, the the aging process, I'm sure they would laugh down the street as ridiculous. How could it possibly do that? Ultimately, you know, alter science and Mother Nature. We're probably going through a similar, I would imagine, consumer behavioural shift in that it's not common for people to trust a normal textile product to be able to deliver these additional benefits. And the more commonplace it becomes, and the more people use these things on a regular basis, the more they'll start to see incremental benefits over a period of time, particularly in the area that we've specialized in, which is the moisturizing sleep suit. You know, it doesn't, you know it's not going to change your life overnight, to be honest with you. You know what you have to do, as you do with any kind of facial skincare or body skincare regime, is you have to use it over a period of time, and the more you use it, that the more hydrated your skin becomes, the more hydrated your skin becomes, the better your skin looks and and ultimately, over time you will, you will kind of end up in a better condition than you were before use the product. But right smart textiles are different in that they give you an instant result. They tell you, you know the heat of your body, or how many hours you slept, or whatever it is that that particular smart textile might do, whereas what are, what most technical textiles in our area will do is ultimately incrementally benefit you, particularly over a period of time. But they're not always wildly noticeable, and therefore, I think people can be more sceptical than they would be scared.

Jessica Owen
So moving forward, then, what are the sort of future plans for the company? Have you got anything in the pipeline? Or are you looking to somehow diverse at all? Or, yeah,

Harry Zalk
absolutely. I think you certainly, as you've mentioned, the defence line of products that we've created a few years ago have become probably higher up the list of importance to continue to develop out and form retail partnerships with and brand partnerships with. We've always toyed with the idea about taking it direct to consumer as well, which we have never done, I guess on the basis that we had a really great partnership that worked and managed to get the product into the hands of so many consumers. But ultimately, a D to C business is something that we're always toying with, and particularly with the changing consumer purchasing habits, is probably no better time to do it.

Jessica Owen
Now, I have to admit, I'm a bit biased. I kind of want you to just so I can try them. So, I mean, I'm not going on any flights, let alone it being an emirate flight, so anytime soon.

Harry Zalk
So the pair of pyjamas, but it's worth every penny. Yeah, I'm sure we could get you a pair to product test.

Jessica Owen
Well, I won't say no to that, and they are, I think, available

Harry Zalk
on the on the Emirates website to purchase as well, which is that exact design that they that they have online. So yeah, there are other ways to get your hands on them.

Jessica Owen
Well, Harry, I think that's everything that I really wanted to talk to you about today. But, I mean, thank you very much for joining me, and it's been really interesting, sort of find out how these sleep suits work and sort of the micro encapsulation process and everything. It's very interesting stuff. So thank you. Yeah, no problems. Well,

Harry Zalk
thank you so much for the call and wishing you well.