Kent Yu and Julie Chung Made Hair Tools Worth the Splurge

Kent Yu and Dr. Julie Chung reinvented an overlooked household appliance into a modern beauty essential, building a market for luxury hair tools. In today’s market, a $200 curling iron seems like your typical luxury styling tool, but when Kent Yu and Julie Chung launched T3 over two decades ago, hair tools were still treated like household appliances rather than high-end beauty products. Dr. Julie Chung is a Korean American ophthalmologist who attended medical school in San Francisco where she met her husband and business partner, Chinese American entrepreneur Kent Yu. Chung loved beauty and skincare and was always willing to invest in expensive, high quality make up and face products, yet she was using a hair dryer that did not reflect that same standard. Back then, there was an open space in the hair tool market due to shoppers only having the option between a cheap drugstore hairdryer or a bulky professional model. Being raised by two hairstylists, Yu began working on a dryer that would create salon-looking blowouts, while remaining lightweight and efficient. In 2004, the couple perfected the prototype, naming it the T3 Featherweight. The T3 was priced at $200, which is almost eight times more than an average hairdryer, so the initial feedback Yu and Chung received warned them about customers being unwilling to pay such a premium. However, T3 became the first electrical hair-tool brand sold at Sephora and as soon as it hit the shelves, customers flocked to invest, generating $3 million in sales during its first year. But it wasn’t until around 2016 when the tool started getting into the hands of beauty blogs and professional hairstylists. Positive reviews and viral videos then helped establish the tool as an industry must-have. Yu and Chung have since expanded T3 into curling irons, flat irons, and multi-stylers, all designed for simplicity and hair health. Now more than 20 years later, the couple still owns and operates 100% of the company out of Los Angeles, with an estimated annual revenue of $5.3 million a year. By treating a hair dryer with the same care as prestige skincare and makeup, Yu and Chung changed how styling tools were designed and sold, allowing T3 to successfully compete with global brands.