Cordina Hair is now The Rather Odd Company
Cordina Hair is now The Rather Odd Company. The name is new, but the products, the patents and the founder behind the brand remain the same, and we would like to explain why we made the change, because it was not a small decision.
A name can quietly decide what you make
Having “hair” in the name placed the company in one industry from the very start. We love the hair industry, and the Flower Curl®, Waver Bun® and silicone-free hair oil came from it, but over time the name began to shape the thinking behind it. Every conversation about what to invent next started and ended with another hair product, whether or not that was where the ideas were actually pointing.
Our founder has a mind that moves between industries and enjoys all of them, and a brand that only speaks about hair left very little room for that. “I can’t force innovative work,” she says. “It has to come naturally. The old name felt limiting, and a new one gives me the freedom to develop and launch things that aren’t hair related at all.”
“I can’t force innovative work. It has to come naturally.”
So the company has grown beyond haircare. Hair tools remain part of the range and always will, but they are now one room in a bigger house, and the house is free to add new rooms whenever a good idea turns up.
Why “rather odd”
It is a name we can say with a straight face, because it happens to be true. Our hair tools were odd enough to be granted patents, which is the law’s own way of saying that nobody had done it before. Our founder also tends to see things from a slightly different angle than most, and prefers to follow her own vision rather than keep an eye on what everyone else is doing.
A name that admits to being a little odd takes the pressure off pretending otherwise.
That last habit is deliberate. “Watching what competitors are doing limits my creativity and drains my energy,” she says. “I’m in my own lane, I always have been, and I’d like to lean into that more.” A name that admits to being a little odd takes the pressure off pretending otherwise.
“I’m in my own lane, I always have been.”
Leaving social media, and showing up differently
Leaving social media is one of the oddest decisions we have made as a business. It took a long time to decide, because it is a rather unusual thing for a company to do and also rather risky at that.
A pause during the founder’s maternity leave brought a lot of clarity about how we want to run things, and about stepping away from platforms that suck our energy and encourage endless scrolling. Nobody feels good after a long scroll, and we believe people are better off spending that time elsewhere. It is exactly what happened to us, because the minute we stopped, our focus shifted and we regained so much time and clarity. It has been eye-opening.
Social media is also how we built the brand, and we even won an award for growing the company through it, so this is a considered move rather than a casual one. Stepping away lets us focus our presence elsewhere and show up differently, both in how we present the brand and in how we interact with the people who buy from us.
We know how we want to show up, and now it is simply a matter of doing it. It is a new way of working for us, and we are excited to see how it unfolds.
Rebranding is nerve-wracking, and we did it anyway
Everything we have built so far was built under the Cordina Hair name, including the press, the awards, and the organic content from beauty creators and celebrities who mentioned us by name.
Walking away from the name attached to all of that is genuinely nerve-wracking. It is also the right move, and we would rather make it with our eyes open than stay comfortable in a name that no longer fits.
What stays the same
The Flower Curl® and Waver Bun® keep their names, and both are protected trademarks that we own as a company. We still trade as Cordina LTD, we still hold the same patents, the quality has not changed, and the hair tools are still actively on sale.
You may notice the old packaging for a while yet. We bought it in bulk and we have no intention of wasting it, so we will work through what we have before the new Rather Odd packaging takes over.
You can buy the hair tools directly from us at theratheroddcompany.com. If you come across them anywhere else, they are likely to be infringing copies. If you are ever unsure, come straight to our website, where you can be certain you are buying from the original creators.
The Rather Odd Club
We have also started something for people who would rather not follow the herd. The Rather Odd Club is for anyone who likes doing things their own way and has occasionally felt like the odd one out. That is perfectly fine, and there is a club for it.
Members will receive interesting takes on life and unconventional ways of doing things, and we will be collecting rather odd takes from our subscribers too. Our favourites will appear in our emails, and in time in our printed paper, Rather Odd News, so that you can read them and feel part of it.
Our email list is already home to more than 55,000 people, and we are excited to welcome new members to the Club. If that sounds like you, we would love to have you part of the RO Club.
Not everyone’s cup of tea. Perhaps yours?
