The Road To JVN

I have been interested in hair as long as I can remember. At 18. I began hair school at the Aveda Institute which was founded by Horst Rechelbacker. Learning about formulas and the foundations of hairstyling was an important building block for my early hairdresser self that has stuck with me ever since.

After the Aveda Institute, I went on to style hair full time in the salon, building clienteles in Arizona, Missouri, California and New York. Year after year, I continued to broaden my skills and scope of knowledge around hairstyling, hair color, and brands - I was a sponge for hair knowledge and loved to learn (and I still do!). As I moved to LA, I started interacting with a lot of clients who didn’t like heat protectants because they “weighed the hair down” and this always frustrated me because on one hand, we need the protection to protect our strands from 400 degree heat but on the other, I could see how so many of the products they were using were in fact weighing their hair down, especially over time. The common culprit was almost always products with silicones in them. In clients with more textured hair where not using product isn’t an option because when styling curls or big heat sets you need mouse, creams, and oils to create the look, the products could get flaky or build up on the hair shaft.

As much as I loved Aveda, their styling products didn’t have the efficacy of some of the more silicone-y or old school styling lines had, so I switched away from cleaner formulas in place of performance ones. As the years went by I started to get back to my clean beauty roots with my skincare - especially when as I was first starting out with Queer Eye, when I discovered Biossance. I instantly fell in love with squalane, it made my skin feel and look amazing and the formulas were this innovative blend of high-functioning, sustainable and clean.

One day, when applying the tea tree facial oil which had hemisqualane in it, I took the leftover oil from my hands and smoothed it over my day two, fuzzy, blow dried hair. Instantly, my hair sucked the oil in and it gave incredible shine. I was intrigued. I had come to a place where i thought we had to rely on silicones and formulas with ingredients I didn’t love in haircare, but with hemisqualane I thought why are we not using this?

I know we have ingredients that can out-do silicone, so lets go for it. I had always loved beauty, but as a queer person I never felt like my communites beauty was being celebrated. As a hairdresser I was also so tired of seeing haircare segregated in a way that doesn’t allow for all types to be seen, served, and celebrated. I knew with my experience behind the chair, as a lover of beauty, and now armed with hemisqalane, along with a brilliant team, we could reshape haircare. From the very beginning I knew I wanted to simplify haircare and formulate for hair concern versus hair type.

All hair is hair, it either needs more moisture, body and volume, or strength, and finally stylers and treatments. Through my relationship with Biossance I was introduced to an incredible person, friend, and scientist Ramya Viswanathan who is our lead product formulator. Through countless rounds of formulation we came up with what I believe is the most innovative haircare we have seen in a very long time. Now, we can have high performance haircare that is clean, sustainable, and for everyone.

Love,
JVN