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Last month, the 57-year-old chief executive of Toni & Guy USA/TIGI Global Inc. launched S-factor shampoo, conditioners, hairspray and other products aimed at 45- to 60-year-olds.

Packaged in Zen-sleek white bottles, S-factor costs twice as much as TIGI’s colorful and sometimes slightly obscene-looking Bed Head and Catwalk products.

For example, 8-plus ounces of hairspray runs $26, while 7 ounces of shampoo costs $24.

Mr. Mascolo swears the stuff is worth every penny.

By taking this upscale route, Mr. Mascolo is joining a widening movement toward experiential marketing. Many consumers, bored with simply buying “things,” are looking for small splurges that play to the senses and feel slightly decadent.

“Baby boomers are more mature but don’t want to be old. We want to be hip and stylish, but we want higher quality,” says Mr. Mascolo, who came to this realization while shopping for jeans with his 20-year-old son. “We’re young-thinking adults in middle-aged bodies. Happily there aren’t that many mirrors to show us we’re really not youngsters anymore.”

Mr. Mascolo decided to reshape his company to get his head back into the game.

Earlier this year, an international cosmetics giant had offered him and brothers Guy and Anthony $350 million for the family-owned firm, which essentially began 20 years ago as a hair salon on Sherry Lane near Preston Center.

Toni & Guy operates 54 salons in 12 states (including 14 in the D-FW area) and six professional hairstyling academies.

All told, Toni & Guy USA and TIGI (tee-gee) will bring in nearly $300 million in 2005 sales, with revenue from beauty products outpacing salon and education by more than 2-to-1.

The latest of several tempting offers came shortly after the three brothers, who live in the United States, split the business geographically with their fourth brother in London. Bruno, Guy and Anthony now have salons in North and South America and the worldwide rights to cosmetics. Brother Toni (whose real name is Giuseppe) owns Toni & Guy salons in the rest of the world.

“It ended very amicable, but getting through that was extremely stressful. We’d been together for nearly 40 years,” says Bruno, the third eldest of the Mascolo boys.

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