Revolutionising wellness with responsive textiles
Hologenix is a materials science company producing innovative responsive textile products that energise all aspects of life — home, work and play. CELLIANT—its flagship product—is a proprietary blend of naturally occurring minerals that capture and convert body heat into infrared energy. The infrared is reflected back into the body and is clinically proven to increase local circulation and cellular oxygenation which causes a number of benefits, including more energy, endurance, strength, stamina, comfort, quicker recovery, and better sleep. In an interview with Fibre2Fashion, Hologenix Co-founder and CEO Seth Casden explains the science behind CELLIANT and the company’s vision for the future.
CELLIANT has been clinically proven to provide benefits such as increased energy, endurance, and better sleep. Can you elaborate?
Validating our claims through science and research is one of our foundational values. To date, we have conducted 10 peer reviewed published studies to validate our claims. We have shown in our studies that CELLIANT infrared technology increases local circulation and improves cellular oxygenation. These increases and improvements cause other benefits including improved temperature regulation, increased energy, endurance, improved strength and a more restful sleep.
What do you think will be the biggest challenges and opportunities for businesses in the next few years?
The textile industry is fully matured. That said, I think its biggest opportunity is also its biggest challenge. That being, how can brands differentiate themselves to capture both a larger market share and a higher price point? Given that this is an established and crowded industry that is creating products that are foundational to people’s lives, this is more difficult than it may seem. One major shift to achieve differentiation is for brands to infuse various kinds of technology into their textile products. These technologies provide added value to the end consumer by having a textile product that, due to virtue of the technology, does more than the basic function of the fabric.
In some ways, technological innovation in fabric has been around for a long time. Think of quick-drying fabric for athletic wear. At one time that was new and exciting but is now considered to be an expectation and foundational to the quality of athletic wear.
Now, we are seeing increasingly sophisticated technologies embedded into fabric. And, because of the research and development involved in creating truly innovative technology, we are seeing more and more ingredient brands partnering with textile brands to team up on this.
CELLIANT is a technology that works in this way. We partner with other brands to give their products a wellness aspect that is a completely new value-add for virtually any textile product. CELLIANT does it through our all-natural blend of minerals that brings infrared energy into people’s lives and spaces.
With the growing trend towards sustainability, how do you think companies can balance profitability with social and environmental responsibility?
Social responsibility is, or should be, core to every business. Sustainability is one of the most critical issues that the textile industry is facing. We are at a point in business where it is not about balancing profitably with these responsibilities, but, rather, these responsibilities are foundational to good business practices.
The key to all of this is transparency. Open, transparent supply chains gain the trust of consumers, and more and more consumers are making purchasing choices based on social, geopolitical, and environmental reasons. In fact, buying sustainable products at a higher price point is a worthwhile trade-off for approximately two-thirds of shoppers.
Transparency also shows a company’s ability to be flexible and agile as they adapt to outside regulations and mandates, which the best brands are imposing upon themselves. It serves as a guiding principle that opens the door to more partnerships with other like-minded brands as they seek out partners who match their philosophies and strategies.
What sets CELLIANT apart from other performance textiles in the market?
Traditional performance textiles are limited to functional fabric enhancements that interact with the environment, such as quick-drying or stain-resistant properties. CELLIANT, however, is a new type of performance textile, called a responsive textile, that actually interacts with the physiology of the body to improve it. The move towards wearing or sitting and sleeping on fabrics that benefit the wearer at the physiological level is what we feel will be the next phase of textile evolution. Many smart textiles out there are monitoring the physiological state, but this takes things a step beyond to improve it.
How does Hologenix ensure that its materials are ethically sourced and produced with a low-impact supply chain?
Hologenix manufactures CELLIANT in the United States. Our dedicated supply chain team actively seeks ways to reduce carbon footprint by diversifying our geographies and matching our brands and suppliers with as many local solutions as possible. We are constantly searching for manufacturing and innovation partners who are committed to sustainable practices. We are also dedicated to creating new formulations of CELLIANT that can be infused into more diverse, sustainable, carriers. We have recently seen huge success with our award-winning CELLIANT with REPREVE and CELLIANT Viscose products. We understand that sustainability is a journey, and we are committed to continuously improving.
How do you see the competitive landscape evolving in your industry, and what strategies do you think will be important to stay ahead of the curve?
We see more and more brands partnering with technology providers to incorporate additional features to drive innovation and create differentiation in the marketplace. In order for CELLIANT to stay ahead of the curve, we continue to invest in our research and science to attract the best brands.
With the increasing pace of technological innovation, how do you think companies can effectively integrate new technologies into their operations and stay competitive?
Technology has had a huge impact on operations in the past several years. Businesses must keep up to not only stay efficient but to also attract and retain talent. One big example that has been top of mind in the past few years is integrating technology that allows not just remote work, but a completely decentralised team. This gives your company the flexibility to truly hire the best available talent without geographical restriction. To stay competitive, companies will have to find those technologies that allow them to grow and improve efficiency.
Can you share any examples of brands that have successfully incorporated CELLIANT into their products?
We work with many world-class brands across a wide range of industries, currently with upwards of 60 active partners. In terms of a few key highlights, we have a long-standing relationship with Under Armour with CELLIANT now powering every article of their popular RUSH apparel collection. In the sleep category, we partner with brands such as Bear Mattress, Mattress Firm and Purecare on a variety of mattresses and top of bed products. Recently, we partnered with Medline to launch a new line, the CURAD Performance Series, featuring orthopaedic products powered by CELLIANT.
How do you approach innovation and product development?
We consider our work with brands to be a true partnership, so we listen to their needs, goals and the shifts they are observing in the marketplace to help inform our innovation and product development. We feel it is valuable to identify strategic partners who have similar or shared roadmaps for R&D. The result is that we can identify ways for infrared to be applicable to more products and fabrics.
What is the story behind Hologenix and how CELLIANT was developed?
Hologenix was the result of the founders coming together and looking for new ways to combine life science and material science. We were interested in how materials interact in nature and how those materials might affect human physiology. That’s when we discovered the potential to deliver the benefits of infrared, an existing modality, in an entirely new method that we call CELLIANT. This new method of applying infrared, because it is capable of being infused into textiles, has the potential to be nearly ubiquitous, bringing wellness to and improving the lives of so many people.
Can you explain the science behind how CELLIANT works to improve local circulation and cellular oxygenation?
CELLIANT is a proprietary blend of naturally occurring bioceramics that can be infused into a carrier fibre or yarn. The bioceramics are able to capture the body heat and convert it into full spectrum infrared energy. This infrared energy is reflected back into the body. The tissue and muscle then absorb the infrared, even through multiple layers of fabric, resulting in improved local circulation, making more tissue oxygen available to the cells — an average increase of 7 per cent, and up to 8.4 per cent in a clinical trial.* The increase in circulation and cellular oxygenation allows the body to be more efficient which causes many benefits, including:
- Improved temperature regulation
- Increased energy
- Improved endurance
- Improved stamina
- Improved strength
- Faster recovery
- Better sleep
* Source: Single Center Prospective Comparative Study to Evaluate the Performance of an Upper Torso Garment, Dr. Ian Gordon, Long Beach VA Memorial Hospital, Journal of Textile Science and Engineering, 2014.
How do you ensure that your products are compliant with regulatory standards in different countries?
We ensure compliance by working with experts who are local to the region to review and validate our claim sets. It is a complex process, but one we are committed to as it is part of our transparency and our backed-by-science philosophy that is so important to our brand partners and end consumers. To date, CELLIANT is cleared to market in over 50 countries. Our dedicated Person Responsible for Regulatory Compliance works with experts in these local regions to ensure we are always up to date and aware of the latest changes.
How does Hologenix collaborate with its partners to create the best possible outcomes?
It all starts with choosing the right brand partners. The relationship CELLIANT has with its partners goes far beyond a transaction. We ensure that both parties mutually benefit from the partnership, setting both of us up for success right out of the gate. After the partnership is established and we have products under development, we pride ourselves on working cross-functionally by offering support across all realms of product development, supply chain, marketing, and regulatory matters.
What is the company’s vision for the future of responsive textiles and wearable technology?
Our overarching vision is for CELLIANT technology to become the new standard for consumers when purchasing textile products. Responsive textiles and wearable technology have become widely commercialised and are an excellent advancement into the monitoring of health for anyone who opts to use it. However, those innovations are not enough to provide psychological benefits when standing solely on their own. By offering additional out-of-the-box solutions, like CELLIANT, we can bridge the gap between wearable technology by providing psychological benefits that offer sustained self-care.
Can you discuss any new products or initiatives that the company is currently working on?
There are new initiatives seemingly every day at CELLIANT, most of which we can’t talk about quite yet, but you can always follow us on social media to stay tuned for upcoming announcements. April 2023 marks the launch of our new product line of kinesiology tape in partnership with industry-leader KT-Tape, which we are thrilled about. With a new sleep study soon to be underway, we are continuing our scientific research and taking the next steps into CELLIANT’s effect on wound care and people with diabetes.
Any upcoming plans or projects that you are excited about?
We are currently working through new patent filings. Expanding our reach to new regions is always a priority. Currently, we are in the process of expanding through Asia which is an exciting opportunity.
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