1.Who we are
Strand is operated by Strand Hair and Beauty (Pty) Ltd (Reg. 2026/555939/07), a private company incorporated in South Africa, based in Durbanville, Cape Town, South Africa. This section, together with our privacy policy, provides the information required by section 43 of the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002 for services offered through this website.
- Legal name and registration: Strand Hair and Beauty (Pty) Ltd, Reg. 2026/555939/07, registered in South Africa.
- Physical location: Durbanville, Cape Town, South Africa. Our registered address for legal service is available on request.
- Contact: hello@strand.style for anything - a person reads it.
- Prices: stated in South African Rand, published before launch and inside the app, inclusive of VAT where applicable.
- Complaints: email us first at hello@strand.style and we will respond within 14 days. Section 14 below covers what happens if we cannot resolve it between us.
2.What these terms cover
These terms apply to the Strand website at https://strand.style, the waitlist, the early access programme, and the Strand app once you have an account. By using any of them you agree to these terms. If you join on behalf of a salon, you confirm you are authorised to bind that salon, and “you” includes it.
Our privacy policy and POPIA and your data pages explain how personal information is handled. They form part of these terms.
3.Your account
You create a Strand account by signing in with a supported identity provider - Apple, Google, or Instagram where offered. Instagram sign-in and Instagram channel connections require an Instagram professional (business or creator) account - a limit Meta sets, not us. You are responsible for the security of the device and identity provider account you sign in with, and for what happens under your Strand account. Tell us immediately at hello@strand.style if you believe your account has been compromised.
You must be 18 or older, or have the consent of a parent or guardian, and the information you give us must be accurate. Some features require identity verification; section 5 of the privacy policy explains how that works.
4.Plans, pricing and trials
Current plans and prices are published before launch and inside the app. Every paid plan starts with a 30-day free trial, and you can cancel at any time - the cancellation takes effect at the end of the billing period you have paid for. Founding-member discounts remain in force for as long as the subscription they attach to stays active.
Subscriptions run month to month with no minimum term. Under section 44 of the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act you have a seven-day cooling-off right for services concluded electronically; where you choose to start using Strand immediately, the service begins with your consent within that period, which is when the cooling-off right falls away - and the 30-day free trial gives you longer than the statute would anyway.
We may change prices with at least 30 days’ notice. A price change never applies retroactively, and if you do not accept it you can cancel before it takes effect. Leaving is allowed to be easy: on cancellation you can export your client book and delete your data, as described in POPIA and your data.
5.Early access
During early access, Strand is provided free of charge, as-is, while we build it with you. Features will change, sometimes weekly. In return we ask that you actually use the product and tell us what works and what does not. Everything in these terms about your data, your client book, and leaving applies in full during early access - free does not mean fewer rights.
6.Your client book, and who answers for it
Your client book - your clients’ names, contact details, formulas, visit history, photos and notes - belongs to you, not to us and not to the salon you work in. Under the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (POPIA), that has a precise legal shape: for your clients’ personal information, you are the responsible party and Strand is your operator. This section is our written operator undertaking under sections 20 and 21 of POPIA.
As your operator, we undertake to:
- process your clients’ personal information only to provide Strand to you, and only on your instructions - never for our own advertising, and never by selling it;
- treat it as confidential and secure it as required by section 19 of POPIA, using the safeguards described in our privacy policy;
- notify you without undue delay if we have reason to believe it has been accessed or acquired by an unauthorised person;
- engage sub-operators (listed on POPIA and your data) only under written contracts that impose equivalent obligations; and
- return or delete it when you leave, as you choose.
In turn, because your clients are your data subjects, you undertake to:
- have a lawful basis for the client information you record - for most stylists that is the service relationship itself, plus consent where POPIA requires it;
- obtain a client’s consent before storing their photos - the app is built around this, and photos save only with consent recorded;
- respond honestly when a client asks what you hold about them, and use the in-app tools to correct or delete a client’s record when asked; and
- not upload information about people who are not your clients.
7.WhatsApp and Instagram messaging
Strand can connect to WhatsApp and Instagram so that messages with your clients land in your studio memory, and so Strand can reply on your behalf where you have switched that on. Messaging runs on Meta’s platforms - the WhatsApp Business Platform and the Instagram messaging API - and Meta’s own terms apply alongside these.
- Consent first. Business-initiated messages are sent only to people who have opted in to receiving them, and consent belongs to a specific business - a client’s consent to another stylist or salon does not transfer to you. If you import a contact list, you warrant that each contact validly agreed to hear from you; Strand will not send business-initiated messages to imported contacts until that consent is captured or confirmed.
- Opt-out is honoured, always. A recipient who replies STOP, or asks to stop in plain language, is not messaged again through that channel. Every marketing message identifies who it is from and how to opt out, as section 69 of POPIA requires.
- Automation is disclosed, and a human is always reachable. When Strand answers a message automatically, the first automated reply in a conversation says so, and a recipient can ask for a human at any time - the conversation is handed to you, and Strand’s own support is reachable by email.
- Platform rules bind us both. Meta limits when a business may message: on WhatsApp, freely within 24 hours of the client’s last message and only with approved template messages outside it; on Instagram, only in reply to a message the client sent first - Instagram conversations cannot be started by the business at all. We enforce those limits in the product, and we may suspend a channel that puts our platform access at risk.
8.AI features, honestly described
Strand structures voice notes, drafts captions and quotes, and answers questions from your own history using AI. AI output can be wrong, and hair chemistry is not a place to find that out late. You remain the professional. Verify formulas, timings and chemical services against your own judgement before applying them to a client. Strand’s answers are recall of what you told it, not professional, medical or chemical advice.
9.Acceptable use
You agree not to use Strand to:
- break the law, including POPIA and consumer protection law;
- send spam or unsolicited marketing through any connected channel, or use a channel for commerce the platforms prohibit - including multi-level marketing schemes and medical or healthcare claims;
- store information about people you have no service relationship with;
- probe, overload or interfere with the service, or access another stylist’s data; or
- resell or white-label the service without our written agreement.
10.Your content and our IP
Everything you put into Strand stays yours. You give us only the licence we need to operate the service for you - to store, process, transcribe, back up and display your content to you and the people you authorise. That licence ends when the content is deleted. We never use your client book to advertise to anyone and we never sell it.
Strand itself - the software, design, brand and everything we built - is ours. These terms give you a personal, non-transferable right to use it while you have an account, and nothing more.
11.Ending things
You can stop using Strand at any time: cancel in the app, export your client book, and delete your data - how to delete your dataspells out the steps. We can suspend or close an account that seriously or repeatedly breaches these terms, and where practical we will warn you first and give you the chance to export your book. If we ever discontinue Strand, we will give at least 60 days’ notice and keep export working until the end.
12.Disclaimers and liability
Strand is provided with skill and care, but no software is perfect and no memory system replaces professional judgement. To the extent the law allows, we are not liable for indirect or consequential loss - lost profits, lost bookings, or loss arising from acting on AI output without professional verification - and our total liability to you in any 12-month period is limited to the amounts you paid us in that period, or R1 000 if you paid nothing.
Nothing in these terms excludes or limits rights you have under the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008 or any other law that cannot be contracted out of, and nothing limits our liability for our own gross negligence or wilful misconduct.
13.Governing law
These terms are governed by South African law. The courts of the Western Cape have jurisdiction, without excluding any court that has jurisdiction over you as a consumer.
14.If we disagree
Talk to us first - hello@strand.style, and a person answers. If we cannot resolve a complaint within 30 days, you may refer it to any forum the law gives you, including the Consumer Goods and Services Ombud, the National Consumer Commission, or - for personal information - the Information Regulator, whose details are on POPIA and your data.
15.Changes to these terms
We will update these terms as the product grows. For material changes we give at least 30 days’ notice by email or in the app before they take effect, and the effective date at the top of this page always tells you which version you are reading. Continuing to use Strand after the effective date is acceptance; if you do not accept, cancel and take your book with you.