The most complete device here decides how much to dispense rather than letting the user decide. Water-oil detection electrodes sit on the comb tooth contacts and read a voltage when they touch the scalp; the signal is amplified, rectified, filtered and converted to digital, then turned into a scalp water-oil value. From that value the device calculates consumption of each composition by its own ratio coefficient, and adjusts the output again for environmental factors and a liquid-output coefficient. A later filing widens the input to pH, moisture, sebum, temperature, electrical conductivity and images, builds a scalp condition gradient profile and a health index from them, meters variable micro-doses through the bristle tips while a massage unit works selected bristles, and updates the profile with post-treatment readings in a closed loop. L'Oréal's version detects contact, distance and locality and controls dispensing through individual tips from a cartridge. Simpler devices do only the last step, stopping the pump when the teeth leave the scalp.
The market pays for measured claims, and the filings do not carry them
2 / 8
The scalp products drawing capital are sold on human trial data. KilgourMD raised a Series A on a clinical trial in menopausal women reporting 95% decreased shedding within six weeks, and OUAI's scalp serum is sold on a 16-week expert grading study. The formulations in the filings rest on in vitro Malassezia inhibition and applicant-reported panel numbers. The market's bar and the filings' evidence are not the same thing, and the market's bar is the higher one.
Strategy
The newest work is still composition, and it is still unproven
3 / 8
The filings arriving now look like the filings that came before them. A fermented Polygonum multiflorum essence paired with piroctone olamine, a ginsenoside-gingerol dispersion built for storage stability, a polypeptide aimed at the hair cortex and the follicle cycle. Each claims a mechanism and a benefit, and none carries a measured human outcome. The field's commitment is to more claims on the same unproven ground.
Research
Two mechanical problems get solved before any chemistry matters
4 / 8
The first is that hair is in the way. The filings answer it with tooth geometry: wavy or V-shaped teeth whose convex points contact the scalp and whose grooves gather hair aside, with the care structure offset from the groove so it acts on the exposed skin. One filing makes the teeth elastic and tapering, so they deform and widen on contact to separate hair roots rather than part around them.
Market
The instrument that reached market is the diagnostic
5 / 8
L'Oréal launched K-SCAN, an AI-powered scalp and hair assessment camera for professional use by hairdressers. IEVA sells HairDiag, a professional scalp and hair diagnostic device, and Becon sells an AI skin and scalp analysis device. MYAVANA raised a $5.9 million seed for AI-driven personalised hair care. The scalp massager category these sit beside was valued at 851.5 million in 2024 and is projected to reach 1.29 billion by 2030.
Strategy
Unilever is the one company whose commitment is legible across the record
6 / 8
Unilever's deposition line runs unbroken into this year. An acrylamidopropyltrimonium chloride copolymer composition published in July, a cationic guar ratio composition in June, a methyl glucamide and silicone composition in January. Same active, same mechanism, different offices and years. P&G's numerically specified polymer claims run alongside it. This is the one line where a named company's strategy is readable across the whole record rather than in a single filing.
Research
A comb where the device is the active
7 / 8
One filing removes the formulation from the device entirely. Self-polarised polyvinylidene fluoride is used as the active material, 3D-printed into brush wires or comb heads; mechanical bending during combing generates electrical signals and reactive oxygen and hydrogen radicals, which regulate the scalp microecology with no external power and no antimicrobial ingredient. It is the only line here where the hardware is the therapy rather than the delivery route, and it is a single filing.
Market
The category's growth is being built in Korea and Japan, and exported
8 / 8
Korea's hair care exports reached $232.62 million in the first five months of 2026, up 30.6% on the same period a year earlier, with the skinification of scalp care named as the driver. In Japan, Korean hair care sales on the Qoo10 marketplace rose 115% year on year in May, with functional treatments, serums and special scalp care products all growing more than 110%. AmorePacific has set hair care as a new growth pillar, targeting KRW 1 trillion in sales by 2030, and its venture arm joined a $7.46 million round for Refilled, a scalp care technology startup.