World's first foil dispenser saves time and stress for hair colorists


Fedele Fabiano was frustrated. A hair stylist and colorist of 27 years, the president of Fabella International understood from painfully slow experience that the bottleneck for colorists lay in the meticulous process of picking up foils one by sometimes sticky one for each and every highlighting job. How could he shorten that part of the procedure, he wondered? The question kept him awake at night.

If he could figure out a solution to his problem, the process would be seamless and shorter for his clients -- a definite plus for time starved women -- and because every highlighting would take less time, he reasoned that it should be possible to schedule at least one additional client each day, financially rewarding the colorist.

Fabiano's quest for relief led him to assume the unlikely role of inventor. The ultimate result of that adventure is the Foil Assistant™, a simple yet elegant solution to the time consuming, stressful foil pickup step in highlighting.

The Foil Assistant™ simply sits on the station. When the colorist lightly presses the arm onto the stack of foils, the arm lifts a single sheet free of the stack, ready for application to the client's hair. If it ever lifts more than one sheet, that's the signal to inspect the stack of foils for bent edges that grip each and smooth them out. The Foil Assistant™ can dispense foil sheets up to 6” x 9”, whether smooth, textured, or window. An added touch is the ability to conveniently store two tail combs on the Assistant.

"It didn't come to me all at once," Fabiano explained. "And what I thought would work didn't work immediately. Working with a design engineer, I'd try one arrangement and modify it, then another and another until finally it worked the way I wanted it to. Then I had to experiment with sticky substances. They had to be sticky enough, but not too sticky."

Colorists around northern New Jersey have tested the Foil Assistant™. Depending on the complexity of the color application, the use of the Foil Assistant saved 10 to 15 minutes on each highlighting. The universal reaction? "When can I buy one?"

It doesn't take a calculator to appreciate that if a hair colorist booked 5 or 6 colorings per day, with the Foil Assistant at her side she could book an additional color job each day. And for the hair stylist for whom color jobs are just part of his business, the Assistant frees up valuable time. Best of all for the bottom line conscious operator, the Foil Assistant more than pays for itself with that first additional booking.