Her hair, her company, her terms.

As Jennifer Aniston marks the first-year anniversary of LolaVie, her d-to-c hair care brand, she stays as committed to the category — and her vision — as ever.

“The impetus for the brand was that I actually have a deep investment in hair, for varied reasons,” said the actress, whose hairstyle as Rachel Green on “Friends” entered the pantheon of iconic styles just like the bob and the excitement cut. 

“I had really troublesome hair, and all the time needed to cope with it,” Aniston continued. “Then, I worked with a few hair firms as an actor for hire with minimal investment. When that partnership got here to an in depth, I still had a serious bug for this industry. I still had more to do, and more ideas, and more products that I desired to create,”  she told Beauty Inc, referring to her 2012 cope with Living Proof, through which she served as ambassador and product creator .

Aniston exited from Living Proof amid that brand’s 2016 sale to Unilever — but mental curiosity within the science of hair care pushed her back into the business.

“I had a specific amount of involvement creatively,” Aniston said of her time with Living Proof. “[When] that ended, I desired to be brought behind the scenes, into the lab and understand the science — how you may take these ingredients and shampoos which can be damaging the hair, ultimately, and replace them with some latest molecule that can enhance the health of your hair.”

“I’m not only a reputation on a product — I actually have a financial investment, I actually have emotional investment, and artistic investment,” she continued. “It’s a full-time job, that’s the difference.”

Aniston’s timing was spot on. LolaVie launched in 2021 with a detangler — just as prestige hair care was really taking off. The category maintains its position because the fastest-growing in prestige beauty, having grown 24 percent within the quarter ending in June, per data from the NPD Group. In response to the identical data, “clean” hair care brands comprised almost 25 percent of sales, a 5-point share gain year-over-year.

Furthermore, the appetite for celebrity brands shows no signs of waning, although competition has heated up across all categories. As reported by WWD, though, megawatt founders don’t a brand make. Amongst probably the most successful are people who have a major involvement from the founders, efficacious products and operational savvy. To that end, Aniston tapped beauty veterans Joel Ronkin and Amy Sachs, each of whom she worked with at Elizabeth Arden on a namesake fragrance, as cofounders, chief executive and president, respectively.

During Yr One, LolaVie launched with Glossing Detangler, $25; Perfecting Leave-In, $29, and Lightweight Hair Oil, $32. The products are vegan and cruelty free, and the emphasis is on results. Executives declined to comment on first-year sales, but sources estimate volume will hit between $15 million and $20 million.

“The brand works well, and if you take a look at Jen, it’s characteristic of her,” Ronkin said. “The products are unfussy, and do what they are saying they’re going to do. That personality reflects her.”

 

LolaVie has taken a deliberately minimalist approach to expansion, and while Sachs didn’t rule out eventual retail expansion, it’s not on the immediate horizon. “It could be fairly easy for us with our experience to go develop a line of 15 products and go to retail. That may have been one approach to launch the brand,” she said. “We made a conscious decision with LolaVie to be direct to consumer, and to permit each product to have its own hero moment within the sun. It also gave us space to let Jen be creative with each product and never launch it until it’s absolutely perfect. We didn’t wish to be under a timeline of a retailer.”

 

Next up are Restorative Shampoo and Restorative Conditioner, $29 each — the bread-and-butter of many a hair care business to round out its assortment.

 

Despite the business implications, Aniston said that when ideating the brand, shampoos and conditioners weren’t top-of-mind. “It felt somewhat obvious to start out with a shampoo and conditioner, and it also wasn’t what I used to be considering. I personally am all the time searching for an incredible detangler, which is why we began with that as our first,” she said.

 

The brand has worked to distinguish itself by developing different ingredients to substitute for category mainstays. For instance, bamboo essence stands within the place of water. “We’ve been in a position to develop every kind of revolutionary ingredients, like a vegan keratin alternative so we don’t must use animal-based products,” Sachs said. “We’ve also developed an ingredient from coconut that’s a natural silicone alternative. We’re in a position to get all of those luxurious feelings that you simply get from these synthetic ingredients, but we’ve been in a position to get them from plant-based ingredients.”

 

Added Aniston on the coconut-derived alternative to silicones, “All of it starts within the kitchen sometimes — I’d put coconut oil into my hair to smooth it out, and it could feel so lush,” she said.

 

“It’s been a tall order to get the products as natural as possible and take away the bad guys, and have the product perform. That took time,” she continued.

 

More products are within the works for LolaVie’s second 12 months, corresponding to a weekly intensive hair mask and a dry shampoo, in accordance with Aniston, who’s also eyeing a styling paste.

 

“Our biggest challenge is determining where to go next so far as innovation,” Ronkin said. “The patron wants more and we’re meeting that demand, but we’re also ensuring that whatever we launch is good. That’s the balancing act that we’re up against.”

 

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