Hair Care Organizer
A solution to my personal problem, a small portable and convenient container that can hold many different types of hair care items like hair rollers, bobby pins, hair ties, etc. Keeping them clean and organized away from dust and hair. It can also act as a keychain and attach to any bag or keys as wish.
This is a individual project created in the course Prototyping for People
Time/Year: Spring 2023
Where: NYU Shanghai
Role: Designer
Skills/Tools: Fusion 360, Prototyping, Product Design
Problem: When I had bangs I would bring a hair roller around everywhere but because dust, lint, and hair would get trapped on it, it was very difficult to keep it clean. I would never have a place to put it either and it would get crushed. Brief: How might we create a product that makes traveling with hair care items more convenient and cleaner?
Ideation
Along with other concepts, here is the initial sketch of a possible “foldable hair roller”
Goal:
- to keep the hair roller clean
- hold other small hair tools
- easily accessible
Prototyping
Before I started modeling the organizer on Fusion 360 I first started off using paper and a sock to make multiple iterations so that I end up with the most user friendly design
1. Foldable cover that will go over the hair roller (shown by the accordion style folding)
2. Slidable slot for a hair comb in the middle
3. Not a device for a hair roller but a new hair roller itself (the main circular base is a hair roller)
4. Used paper for this first prototype
Material
- Used the inside of the toilet paper roll, thick paper, cardboard, double sided and one sided tape.
Compartment
- Placed the compartment slots to the side instead of the middle and added extra small ones bobby pins, hair elastics, etc.
Cover
- Using a sock, the cover would wrap around the roller to keep it clean
Fusion 360
Then I moved onto the Fusion 360 model but it still went through a couple of changes
Instead of designing a roller, it transitioned to a container for holding rollers. In the first picture, I included slots for finger so the user can push out the hair roller. In the second picture, I did not know how to make the slot work so that it would be open circles for most of the container so that is why there are some lines inside of the circles
I added a lid (with indentations for easy grip) and inner compartments through the center of the container. But... I wanted to make the shape of the organizer more curved to fit the hand
Pain Points
Features
1. Hair roller gets dirty
1. Double compartment to keep up to two hair rollers clean from dust and hair
2. Cannot find hair roller in my bag
2. Making the container into a keychain and two tone colored so that it is easy to spot in a bag, pull out opening that makes it easily accessible compared to a twist top
3. Having no other places to put other hair tools
3. Added compartments on the empty space in the middle to store other items besides a hair roller
Final Model
Two small holes to attach a string to make it a keychain
Compartments for a comb and smaller hair tools
Slots for the two sizes of hair rollers
The top slides off with a easy pull but is still tight enough where it doesn't fall off
Two different colors so that the user knows which one is the top and which part holds the hair tools
For the hair roller
Keychain strap that can be attached to the lid
For the comb to slide in
Lid of the tool
Examples of items you can place into the small compartments
Hair tie
Small hair clips