It was clear to Lee and Harris that there was something significant happening, and that many women were desperate for a solution. “Hair is important,” Julia Roberts, who Lee recently took blonde, calls to tell me the day before the launch, “and when you know that is when you lose it.” Roberts’ hair is in excellent shape, thanks to Lee—“I wouldn’t have 4 hairs on my head if it weren’t for Kadi,” she says, adding “I put my hair through hell”—but she’s had enough friends go through cancer treatments and hormonal changes to know how traumatic its loss can be, and how pivotal it is to self-esteem, especially for women. When Lee told her about what she was seeing amongst the women she knew, and Highbrow Hippie’s idea of a product line to tackle it, Roberts immediately offered to signal boost in any way she could. This was no small matter. “Here’s the thing, I can be friends with someone. I can love someone with all my heart, but I can find 117 ways to get out of having to talk about something if I’m not really feeling it,” Roberts says. But for this project, she was thrilled to get out in front to wave the flag. “I thought, oh yeah, of course, Leave it to Kadi to come up with something that not only do I want slash need, but it’s just really streamlined, simple,” Roberts said. “It’s like a no-brainer for me.” She shared some of her samples with a friend while shooting an upcoming project in London, and both quickly compared results. Soon after, they were clamoring for refills.
Along with the hard-won expertise of day-in-day-out hair professionals, Lee and Harris’ secret weapon may have been that they had a built-in ultra-discerning client base at their disposal as their focus group. They quickly learned what would and wouldn’t fly—like the fact that no one wanted another overpromising shampoo and conditioner. No one wanted another horse pill-sized supplement that was super harsh on the stomach or had strange side effects. Everyone wanted something that worked and factored into their lives seamlessly, and that was as naturally derived as possible. “We wanted to offer something that wasn’t just an ingredient that would encourage hair growth, but also really addressed the root causes as to why people’s hair was being compromised: Why was it getting thinner? Why was it falling out?” Harris told me. (Highbrow Hippie’s ethos has always been a holistic one, as you might have guessed from the name. “Our entire brand ethos is beauty, wellness, and conscious living,” Lee says.) Their product “addresses all of the root causes of hair loss. It has immune support, we have gut health, brain cognition, cellular health, and all of your daily vitamins and minerals. In addition, we also have these ingredients that have been really formulated for hair growth. We’re really bringing the body back into alignment, into balance.”
The line includes a “7-in-1” ingestible supplement containing 13 essential vitamins (including A, C, D3, E, Bs 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6) as well as biotin, chromium, ashwagandha, GABA, resveratrol, and a hair health blend with black rice, wheat germ extract, and prickly pear extract that targets stress, anxiety, and hormonal changes while boosting immunity. The serum is rich in fermented antioxidants like resveratrol, and uses Redensyl, a natural alternative to minoxidil made from plant extracts, to stimulate hair regrowth; it’s intended for twice daily massage-in application, but once a day is okay, too. “Gwyneth is obsessed” with the serum, Lee says; Roberts is, too. “I have gotten into really kind of loving the ritual: I just put the little tincture on my head in the morning and just give myself a little head massage. It’s just this lovely little piece of time,” she told me. “And then you go about your day.” The fact that much of the initial test group asked to become investors speaks for itself.
