Once reserved for the red carpet, these sustainable formulas of A-List colorists and stylists may be just the spring boost your hair craves.
Indulge us in a quick thought experiment: You’re a haircare pro putting together a focus group for your very first products in development, and a genie grants you any three people on earth to add to your list of participants. Whom would you choose?
Whoever makes your dream team, we’re guessing there’s some overlap with the real-life roster of testers behind the new Highbrow Hippie Haircare and Wellness line: Julia Roberts, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Meghan Markle, for starters. The brainchild of colorist Kadi Lee and entrepreneur Myka Harris, this wellness brand is part of a growing trend: celebrity hair pros staking a claim in the world of clean beauty.
Photo: Liza Voloshin
In Highbrow Hippie’s case, the result is an airy, leafy atelier in Venice, California, that offers color, cuts, styling, and treatments. “It’s built around an outdoor space where our clients literally stare at something green while they get their color done,” says Lee. “It not only regulates their nervous system, but it’s also just better for them overall.” Arguably the most wellness-inducing experience on offer there? A scalp care session incorporating the new Root Replenish Active Growth Serum that has quickly become a cult favorite.
“The physical space and product line are under the same umbrella with the same ethos,” says Lee. Indeed, sustainability is built into the brand DNA. “It’s the way that we both were raised as humans,” she explains, noting that Harris’s family was, “clean and hippie and crunchy before it was a thing,” and her own family comes from Jamaica, “where it was like, of course you’re eating the freshest, most organic food—that’s what food is.”
Lee’s clientele tends to agree. Some, such as Paltrow, are clean beauty entrepreneurs themselves. Others, like Julia Roberts, inspire Lee simply by how they live their lives: “a similar ethos of no waste, fresh organic foods…not being such a slave to beauty, but really enhancing natural beauty.” So, when the Highbrow Hippie team decided to formulate its own line, “we had the built-in community to start with,” says Lee. “Before we developed one formula, or met with any chemist, we sent out this in-depth survey to all of our clients…and then that was our launch point.”
From new moms to women going through menopause, many had the same complaints: hair loss and scalp issues. “We really started to notice that it was not just a topical fix,” says Lee, “but also an internal fix—and both things needed to work together. You couldn’t just slap on a Band-Aid.” Thus, Highbrow Hippie’s first two products: “a scalp serum for an overall healthy environment for your hair to thrive, and then a supplement that promotes hair growth, but also addresses all these underlying factors that could inhibit your hair growth.”
Among the serum’s sustainably sourced extracts and ferments is a plant-based minoxidil alternative called Redensyl. And while the supplement contains a multitude of vitamins, one—biotin—does come with a caveat: “Individuals with thyroid issues should consult with their doctor before taking the Essential Wellbeing Complex,” as biotin can interfere with thyroid function tests, among others. The brand also notes that “those taking blood thinners, who are pregnant, looking to conceive, or breastfeeding should not take the Essential Wellbeing Complex.”
Caveats aside, the products have quickly earned devotees. “Way before the products launched, our clients were on these supplements and the hair serum,” says Lee. “We got to really see the results and know what we could actually tell people to expect—and in what timeframe.” Julia Roberts had the serum long before anyone else did, says Lee, adding that it helped the star grow her hair back after some major chopping for a movie role. “I wouldn’t have four hairs on my head if it weren’t for Kadi,” she told Vogue last November.
By next fall, celebrities and civilians alike will have more to choose from in the Highbrow Hippie line: a wellness tea and “the best hair mask I’ve ever used in my career,” says Lee, adding that the two work in tandem as “the perfect self-care moment.”
Another celebrity hair pro with a clean—and growing—product line: stylist Mara Roszak, whose clients include Zoe Saldaña, Emma Stone, and Olivia Wilde. Born of her frustration with products that were too heavy or complicated to pull off her signature (seemingly) effortless look, RŌZ is a collection of lightweight, botanical-forward formulas in planet-friendly packaging.
Just a few years old, RŌZ made headlines in February with the news that Sephora would soon be stocking the beloved indie brand’s signature glass and aluminum bottles of shampoo, conditioner, serum, spray, and more. For the uninitiated, the gateway product may well be the Santa Lucia Styling Oil, a remarkably lightweight blend of argan, jojoba, and roman chamomile oils, among others that tames frizz, protects against heat damage and boosts shine. Check out any red carpet look that Roszak helped create (Zoe Saldaña, Juno Temple, Michelle Yeoh) and odds are, the Santa Lucia Styling Oil was involved.
Not the exclusive domain of LA’s leading hair ladies, clean collections are burgeoning on the East Coast, too. One of the best cases in point—R+Co—comes from New York power couple Garren and Thom Priano and their cofounder Howard McLaren.
Garren is one of those icons who can move through the world with one name, much like a number of the women he’s worked with. (Madonna. Linda. Gaga.) For his part, Priano is a men’s hair expert whose grooming has long graced the covers of GQ, Esquire, and Rolling Stone. (Think: Harry Styles, Timothée Chalamet, Jon Hamm.) And while McLaren has done a lot of hair on set as well, he’s brought years of brand development expertise to the line.
“We had three artists in the same game, but with different backgrounds and influences,” says Garren. But from the beginning, the common goal was to make amazing products that were vegan, sustainable, and clean. That directive has only intensified with the brand’s most recent collection: R+Co Bleu, with packaging that’s both recycled and recyclable (not always the same thing). The bottles and jars are made from 100% post-consumer recycled material; the tubes, from bioresin sugarcane plastic; the canisters, from aluminum; and the cartons and secondary packaging, from 100% post-consumer recycled paper with a seed-embedded sheet that you can plant to grow wildflowers.
“I wanted to do luxury like nobody else did,” says Garren of the collection that blends biodegradable formulas with haute-couture influences. Indeed, the esthetic—in all its jewel-toned glory—was inspired by a 1978 Yves Saint Laurent collection. “It was the first time I was at a couture show in Paris, and it left such an impression,” he says. The products themselves are also couture-adjacent, with subcollections that vary according to your own needs: hot pink packaging for curl care; purple for volume and thickening; yellow for blond; red for other color-treated hair; blue for the everyday needs of any hair type; and green for extra moisture and repair.
Not that you need be a fixture of the fashion world to appreciate these products, of course. Long before Garren was working with models and celebrities, he was going house to house as a teen in Niagara Falls, where he styled his mother’s friends. And this collection is as much a tribute to them as to anyone—“women who love their hair and just want to keep it healthy and safe.”
