Corralling their children for bath time was a nightly struggle for actor Harold Perrineau and his wife, Brittany. Their neighbor, Jeffrey Phelps, was facing the same problem.

The three commiserated and decided to come up with a way to get their kids excited about cleaning up. The answer: a shampoo and conditioner line called Ice Cream Heads.

The line of ice cream-scented shampoos and conditioners, launched this month, comes in three “flavors” – strawberry, vanilla and chocolate.

“My daughter was truly an ice-cream head. She just loves ice cream,” said Phelps. “So now, every night she says, ‘I want to be an ice-cream head,’ and runs to the bath.”

It took three years to come up with the right formulation and create the custom bottle, shaped like an upside-down ice-cream cone.

The line, which will be sold in 20 stores across the country by Nov. 1, is now available online and at several Kitson Kids stores and the Yellow Balloon in Los Angeles. Retail price is $12 a bottle.

Brittany Perrineau and Phelps said they are looking to expand the line by adding a leave-in conditioner, along with body soaps and hand sanitizers.

Phelps, a film and TV writer-director, said the company projects sales of $100,000 its first year.

The U.S. hair care market is highly competitive and faces declining sales, projected at $7 billion in 2014, down from $7.35 billion in 2009. But analysts say products that target niche markets will have an easier time of it.

Already, Perrineau discovered she underestimated the appeal for adults.

“One of my kids’ friend’s dad used all of his daughter’s strawberry ice cream, and now his daughter is really upset,” said Perrineau, nothing that the man’s wife has ordered chocolate-scented shampoo, “so he smells a little more manly.”

– Subrina Hudson