ou're fresh out of the shower and your soaking wet hair is sending streams of water down your back. You wrap a towel, turban-style, around your head and dry off when, bam, the towel's fallen off and your dripping hair slaps you in the face. One of life's minor inconveniences, perhaps. But it's one that many women are gleefully putting an end to with a handy invention called the Twirly Towel.
Little more than a crescent of terry cloth, a button and some elastic, the Twirly Towel quickly wraps into a neat turban that fastens with a button to stay perched on your head. Although it seems simple enough, it took Kym Henegan, a South African-born advertising executive, about seven years to bring the product to market. She's now making up for lost time. Since the Twirly Towel's November 1995 debut on Q2, a division of the QVC home-shopping channel, it has landed on the shelves of major department stores, spas and beauty salons. In all, about 200,000 have been sold, generating more than $1 million in revenues for Henegan's Long Island City, N.Y.-based company, J.K.D. Industries.
Patent Pending
Henegan, now 31, came to the United States in 1986 and was working as an advertising executive when a friend gave her a body wrap he'd made from a bath sheet with Velcro fasteners on the side. She loved it, and decided to take the idea a step further. "I have long hair and was sick of towels that flopped down in your face," she says. "I immediately had the idea of doing a version for the head."
Henegan toyed with a few different shapes, but soon realized Velcro was an unsuitable fastener since it can't be washed or thrown in the dryer. A hook-and-eye closure wasn't secure enough, and a tuck-in design just didn't hold. Finally, she hit on a button-and-loop combination that was easy and durable.
A colleague advised her to retain a patent lawyer and recommended the New York City firm of Levhinson, Lerner and Berger. "At first the guys didn't get it," she recalls, "but their secretaries did!"
Still, Henegan's patent application was rejected. "I went back to the patent lawyer," she recalls, "and said, 'Let's see how we can really tweak this and make it work.'" That meant more detailed illustrations of the towel, plus a bit of sophistry. "We said, 'It takes the place of a big-bulk bath towel, it protects hair from the sun, and saves on your wash load,'" she says. Six months later, after almost $60,000 in lawyers' and patent fees, she was granted a patent --by a woman.
Cleaning Up
Henegan had been using her $35,000-a-year advertising salary, plus her take from a second job tending bar to fund her venture, but now began trying to locate an investor. A friend introduced her to the designer Donna Karan, who expressed interest in using the towel as a gift premium, but Henegan was adamant about marketing it as a stand-alone product. Ultimately, no investors were willing to back an unknown inventor.
Finally, in late 1994, she approached Joe Iorio, an apparel manufacturer in Long Island City, N.Y., about having some samples made. When he saw the Twirly Towel, Iorio offered to put up $175,000 in exchange for a 50 percent partnership in her fledgling company. The pair formed J.K.D. Industries, and Henegan quit her job to devote all her energy to the business.
With her new product in hand, she visited the headquarters of Q2 and asked to see the buyer. Told she was in a meeting, Henegan left a sample and a plea for the buyer to take it home and try it. The buyer called a week later. Twirly Towel appeared on the air for the first time in November 1995, and was the network's top-selling product for the next two months.
Boosted by the success, Henegan pitched home-furnishings showrooms, including New York City-based Betty Lee and Associates. "I tried it on and it fit perfectly, and I have a small head that could never hold a turban on," says Lee. "I thought it was an excellent product and it has just taken off." Buyers scooped up Henegan's product, which now sells for between $15 and $21 in stores such as Bloomingdale's, Bed, Bath & Beyond, and Marshall Fields.
Revenues for 1996, Henegan's first full year in business, were $500,000, and the company has just climbed out of the red. The towel comes in three colors, and also in customized styles emblazoned with salon or hotel logos, for example. Henegan expects 1997 revenues to hit $3 million.
Her long-awaited success is gratifying, but Henegan admits she made mistakes. She regrets, for instance, rushing into a partnership. "When I couldn't get commercial financing I should have gone to Bloomingdale's and said, 'Here are 24 pieces, test them for me,' and then I could have made up a purchase order for 800 pieces. With that in hand, I could have gone to any bank." Instead, she is now looking to buy out her partner and find a new manufacturer.
She's been approached by mass retailers like Wal-Mart, but for now Henegan prefers preserving the Twirly Towel's upscale cachet. "It's useful, but it also makes people feel pampered. Most women buy one, then pick up more as gifts. I don't want to lose that yet."
The Twirly Girl, as she's called by her neighbors in New York City's Greenwich Village, is in no hurry to accelerate sales. "This little thing has made me so much money, and it's scary," she says, "but now I can afford to take time and do things right."
