Hairstory's new CEO is 20-year marketing and brand strategy veteran Dina Rosenbloom, who joined the company last year as its Chief Marketing Officer and was recently promoted to the top spot.
Prior to joining Hairstory, Rosenbloom held executive positions at beauty and fragrance companies including Bumble and bumble, Creed, Unilever Prestige, Carol’s Daughter, and Jurlique.
Hairstory is known for its signature New Wash cleansing creams that clean, condition, detangle, and repair hair using sustainable ingredients and packaging.
Rosenbloom spoke to American Salon about the growing need for beauty brands to adopt sustainable, inclusive products and policies in order to thrive among tough competition.
AS: Since you started your career, what has been the biggest change you’ve seen among major beauty brands? What excites you about the beauty industry landscape today?
DR: The most pronounced change is the movement and acceleration to "clean" and sustainable beauty. It was non-existent when I first started in the hair-care industry, and then became a trend — or even what some thought would be a fad, and now it's just table stakes.
I'm thrilled that Hairstory was a pioneer and has been a leader in this effort to be better for people and the planet.
What are some of the key elements that beauty brands need to consider today that weren’t part of the conversation 20 years ago?
Beauty brands clearly need to consider the impact of their product. It's not just about creating options that garner results for clients, but also the thought that those tools and products aren't harming the person using them. (Or the planet.)
Diversity is another key element. We're moving toward less niche and more universal in ethnicity, skin tone, and gender. The most successful brands are able to speak to a wider variety of customers.
Their digital presence is also critical. Brands have to analyze data so they can create smart, thoughtful solutions and selling propositions to succeed both offline and online. The lines are blurred between the two.
When did sustainability start entering the conversation in the boardrooms of mainstream beauty brands? What were some of the biggest steps in sustainability that you were personally involved in?
It started to enter our nomenclature around the late "aughts" — 2008-2010. Before we were so closely connected by the Internet, sustainability practices were a fringe thing. They have steadily pushed further and further into our everyday practices since then, and are not going anywhere.
I spent the last decade-plus at The House of Creed fragrances, where the majority of the ingredients were sustainably sourced from small farmers around the world. I believe this focus on sustainability is why Creed is a leader in the luxury lifestyle fragrance space, and why Hairstory will lead in hair care.
You’ve worked with brands that cater to all textures of hair. Can you tell us how the landscape has changed (and continues to change) for textured hair since you started your career?
I started my career in hair care at Bumble and bumble, then went on to Carol's Daughter, and only came back to hair care after a decade of being in the perfume industry.
Since my re-entry, I have been pleasantly surprised to see how much more education there is around different textures of hair, and the basic knowledge that customers have of the Hair Type and Texture Chart. It’s refreshing to see the entry of so many great brands that cater to different hair types, many of which are created and led by BIPOC+ founders.
What drew you to Hairstory? What’s next for the brand?
What drew me to Hairstory is my connection to the founders and my love of the innovative New Wash cleansing cream formula. I have been a long-time client and subscriber, since the beginning actually. New Wash completely changed my relationship to my hair and how I look and feel.
When Eli [Halliwell, Hairstory’s co-founder] contacted me and asked me to join the team, I was intrigued. It's very important to me that I believe in the company, brand mission, and products I represent. So, naturally, I was inclined to take on the new role.
What's next? We have one of the best teams at Hairstory. We have hair-care formulas that are better for hair, better for hairdressers, and better for the planet. We now just need to let the world know. So, we are working diligently to expand our offering, refine our brand identity, and grow our presence in North America and other parts of the world.
I anticipate that a couple years from now, Hairstory will be a brand known by every hairdresser in the U.S.