Nancy Twine is entering her second act as a beauty founder. Nearly four years after Wella Company acquired her first venture, hair-care brand Briogeo, the entrepreneur has launched Soulstice, a new hair-care brand focused on high-performance formulas at more affordable prices. Her love for the hair industry — and scrappy startup culture — ultimately brought her back to the founder’s seat.
“I think people think that, once you get to a certain point or achieve a milestone, that the next big thing is just doing nothing or chilling,” Twine tells Fashionista. “But I actually find that super boring. And for me, truly what brings me the most joy is being able to build and create… especially at this point in my life. I’m 41 years old; I’m three weeks away from giving birth. Life for me is all about chasing what brings you joy, and this really does.”
Twine founded Briogeo in 2013 after leaving a career in finance. The brand was built around a then-emerging idea: “clean” and plant-powered hair care that was performance-oriented and inclusive of different hair textures. In 2014, she became the youngest Black woman to launch a brand at Sephora at the time. By 2021, industry sources estimated Briogeo generated more than $100 million in revenue.
“I learned so much during my journey with Briogeo,” she says. “I made so many mistakes, both personally and professionally, and it’s actually really thrilling to get a chance to do something a second time around, taking all those learnings.”
Photo: Courtesy of Soulstice
One of the biggest learnings is the art of self-care and focusing on yourself, whether in the shower with a hair mask or avoiding burnout while running a company. “When I think about the Soulstice brand and the emotional aspect of Soulstice, that was actually inspired by a lot of the lessons that I learned on the personal side of running a business,” Twine says. During her Briogeo days, she thought the more of herself she put in the business, the larger the success. It ended up being the opposite.
“I felt like I was running on a treadmill, like I wasn’t getting from A to B,” she admits. “I had to step back and start thinking about what it meant to prioritize myself because the more that I could show up with energy and mental clarity and all of those things… that was what was actually going to get me ahead.”
To that end, she’s been making time for acupuncture, meditation, massage or just going for a walk outside. “[When] I started prioritizing myself, that was when everything started to shift,” she adds. “I became a better boss, I became a better leader, I became more creative.”
A Soulstice campaign image.Photo: Courtesy of Soulstice
She poured those learnings into Soulstice, which she calls “hair care for your highest self.” The name comes from the summer solstice, when the sun reaches its highest point. The idea is to turn an otherwise routine hair-care regimen into a more restorative ritual when you’re alone without your laptop or phone to distract you. As Soulstice rolls out on social media, you’ll see this messaging throughout each platform.
That social community is especially important in the new era of launching a beauty brand. “I think people, especially our consumers, really want to feel connected to the brands that they’re using,” she says. “While we’re super focused on formulation, we’re also focused on creating the Solstice brand world and that sort of emotional connection.”
Of course, it’s also about the product. In the past 15 years, Twine learned about supply chains and formulation and how to navigate both effectively and in a more cost-effective way for the consumer. Most of the line rings in at $20 or less, including its Moisture Muse Shampoo and Conditioner ($20 each), Wavelength leave-in ($18) and Base Layer smoothing heat protectant ($18). The Buttersilk Restorative Mask is $26.
She was able to achieve more “masstige” prices, in part, by skipping secondary boxes and unnecessary ingredients. “I think a lot of brands try to differentiate themselves by using these different ingredients that are nice from a storytelling perspective, but aren’t really adding that much performance value to the formula,” she says.
Related: How Briogeo Founder Nancy Twine Went From Goldman Sachs VP to Hair-Care Success Story
Not that there isn’t an ingredient story. Twine worked with a chemist for the first time to develop Soulstice’s proprietary, patent-pending ingredient, VitaMega Complex, which she calls a “superpowered multivitamin for your hair and scalp.” It features a blend of Kakadu plum, inositol and sacha inchi, and is featured in every product in the collection.
Although Soulstice plans to stay DTC for at least a year, Twine sees a big opportunity in the broader masstige hair-care market (which is priced between mass-market items and luxury goods). “When you walk the masstige hair aisles, it’s pretty sleepy,” she says. “Everyone wants to be in prestige, prestige, prestige, which is great, but there’s so much there. And I feel like the masstige aisles have been a bit overlooked.”
Twine wants Soulstice customers to realize they can have products that perform as well as “or even better than” prestige options, but at lower prices. “One of the things that was sometimes hard for me, being in the prestige hair space, would be: People loved the hair mask so much, but it’s not realistic…to spend $46 or in some cases $50, $60 on a hair mask every month,” she says.
For Twine, that balance between performance, accessibility and self-care is ultimately what defines this second act. She has already proven that she can build a successful hair-care company. With Soulstice, we’ll see if she can do it again with a slightly different playbook.