DAFNI

DAFNI is an Israeli hair-tool brand based in Ra'anana and owned by Dafni Hair Products, Ltd., a family-run company [7]. It launched in September 2015 around a single product: a heated ceramic brush designed to straighten hair in one pass rather than clamping it between two hot plates. The company markets itself as the maker of "the original" ceramic straightening brush, and the design went on to spawn a wide field of imitators.

The brand was founded by Sharon Rabi, an engineer and mother of two, who developed the tool with her father and a business partner after conventional flat irons left her hair badly damaged [5]. DAFNI remains commercially active, with an operating online store and recurring product launches, though its editorial blog has been dormant since early 2024.

According to the company, Sharon Rabi traced her idea to a basic observation: nothing fundamental about hair-straightening technology had changed since the flat iron was patented in 1909, even as the heat involved kept damaging hair. Trained as an engineer, she set out to build a tool that would distribute heat rather than concentrate it on a narrow plate.

Sources differ on exactly who built it with her. DAFNI's own account names three people — Sharon Rabi, her father Kobi Rabi (described as a senior electrical engineer), and a separate business partner, Kobi Guy [5]. A later press release tied to a lawsuit referred instead to "Sharon Rabi and her father Kobi Guy," appearing to merge the father and the partner into one person [7]. The brand site and a 2017 Good Housekeeping announcement both keep them distinct, with the father identified as Kobi Rabi [8].

The brand carries a personal name: the company says DAFNI was named after Sharon Rabi's sister.

DAFNI's public debut came in 2015 and was driven largely by social video. A Facebook demonstration of the brush spread quickly, reaching what one account put at more than 120 million views and two million shares — coverage that described it as "the original brush that broke the internet" [9]. Within its first weeks the launch had generated tens of millions of views, and the company says it later sold more than one million brushes across Europe, the United States and Asia.

The underlying technology took longer to protect than to popularize. A United States utility patent was issued in March 2017 after what the trade publication WWD described as a five-year process [6] — a timeline that implies development work began several years before the 2015 launch, which the brand treats as its founding year [5]. In July 2017 the company introduced a portable model, DAFNI Go, priced below the original brush [6]. Its product range later widened to include cordless and higher-powered brushes and, more recently, a line of magnetic hair clips sold under the KLIX name.

DAFNI is owned and operated by Dafni Hair Products, Ltd., an Israeli company headquartered in Ra'anana that describes itself as family owned [7]. A separate entity, Guy A Shaked Investments Ltd, was identified in litigation as the holder of the patents at issue. No acquisitions or changes of ownership are recorded in the available sources.

DAFNI positions its tools around hair health and speed, aimed at everyday users rather than professionals. The company states its mission as making products that are "simple to use, honor hair integrity, and let you express your most fabulous self", and one interview framed the brand as designed "for real life, everyday wonder-women who do not want to compromise on their hair." That framing — engineering led by a female founder, sold directly to consumers — places DAFNI alongside the founder-driven beauty-gadget brands that gained traction in the 2010s.

The brand's defining product is the original DAFNI ceramic straightening brush, later joined by models including DAFNI Go, DAFNI Power, DAFNI Muse and the cordless DAFNI active, plus the KLIX magnetic clips. Across these, the company has described prices ranging from roughly 20 to 149 US dollars.

The central engineering claim is heat management. DAFNI says its brushes use a ceramic "3D matrix" surface offering about seven times the area of a conventional straightener, paired with what it calls Power Core Technology operating at a fixed temperature. WWD reported that the design incorporates a heat-isolation panel of a type used by NASA and the US Army, and that the tool could cut styling time from around 30 minutes to three [6]. The brushes also include a sensor-based automatic shut-off.

DAFNI's patent filings span more than 20 jurisdictions, including the United States, Israel, Japan, China and much of Europe, covering both utility and design rights; a separate Israeli patent covers the KLIX clip line.

In 2017 the original brush won a Good Housekeeping Beauty Lab Award in the "Hot Stylin' Tool" category [8]. Founder Sharon Rabi has also drawn press attention in her own right, including a Forbes 30 Under 30 listing for her work on the brand [9] and profiles in outlets such as WWD and WeAreTheCity.

DAFNI's commercial success was followed by a wave of copies. The company has said the market filled with knock-off ceramic straightening brushes — by some industry estimates as many as 75 — and in 2019 it filed patent-infringement suits against several companies, alleging violations of three utility patents and one design patent [7].

DAFNI remains an active commercial operation. Its US site continues to sell its brushes and clips, carries a 2026 copyright and has promoted new releases such as an expanded KLIX line, and the brand maintains a presence on Instagram and TikTok. Its editorial blog, however, has not been updated since January 2024, leaving commerce active while published content has lapsed.