A Look Inside the Hair Care Industry

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Hello, this is Rebecca Fleetwood Hession, host of The Badass Women's Council podcast. And today on the show, we have Michelle, CEO and founder of Elevate Hair Care. And she's going to give us a peek inside the hair care industry that's probably going to shock you a little bit and tell you what she's doing about it. Here we go.( singing) Hey, Michelle. How's it going?

Michelle: Great. How are you?

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Super good. I love our meeting story. We met about four years ago when I was doing a keynote speech for the National Association of Women Business Owners, NAWBO here in Indianapolis. And you won the entrepreneur of the year award, I think it was called.

Michelle: Young entrepreneur of the year award.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Young entrepreneur. Well, let's include that. Of course, you have to-

Michelle: Under 40, yes.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Oh, I love that. And I was with another friend and actually podcasts guest, Brittany Overbeck who owns Blue House Bridal. As soon as they announced you and told a little about your story, she looked at me and she was like," We need to know her, and she needs to be on the podcast or something." I was like done. So we've been friends for about four years, but we're finally getting you on the podcast. Yay.

Michelle: Yeah. Excited to be here, finally.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: So you are a part of the beauty industry, which there's no topic that touches more of our listeners than that, but I'd love for you to tell a little bit about how you've been working in the beauty industry, because it's different. You've got a little different approach to it. So tell us your history in this industry.

Michelle: I'm a hairstylist by trade, but I also, I'm a big why person. So I always went into the why's of everything. So when I got into doing hair, education was something that I was really passionate about continuing my education and then also educating my clients on how to work with their hair at home. So a mentor that I used to really strongly respect, she was like," When your clients come in and they say,'I love how you do my hair, and I can't do anything with it at home,' it's not a compliment. They should like their hair all the time." So I really took it to heart to find quality recommendations and techniques and things that I could make hair simpler for people at home. Through one of our conversations, you helped me to identify the term, hair coach because more than just cutting and coloring your hair, I'm teaching you how to work with it and love it at home.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I love it. And that was a huge benefit to me and other people that you worked with, that I referred to you. Men and women alike said that they love that you would take the time to even like," Well, how are you working with this cowlick or how are you working with the fact that your hair is super fine?" You took the time to get to know us and our challenges with working with hair. That's a big deal.

Michelle: Well, I always like to start with what is your struggle? I feel like they teach us. Actually, they teach us not to ask people what their hair struggles are because so many people have them and they have so many of them that it will take up your entire consultation. But I like to ask you, what is it that you fight with your hair, because then I can get into problem solver solution mode and try to help you overcome those things. So it's really helped me to learn a lot about what people are fighting with at home. Just asking the question and hearing these answers and then going out and trying to find again those helpful tools and solutions and bringing them back to my clients is really...

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And you are a big why person. So not only are you a hairstylist and you're behind the chair and you're coaching people and how to work with their hair, but you've also worked in the industry, selling products and understanding the chemistry behind those. So you've taken it past styling, right?

Michelle: Yeah. So I started school to study business and chemistry, and then got into a car accident and hair was kind of a part- time job as what I was thinking it was going to be. It was a good job security while I was in college, but I just absolutely fell in love with it, and I was fascinated by the fact that it combined this creative, artistic trade with chemistry and science. So I really gravitated towards hair color because there's so much chemistry that goes into that, and I really wanted to understand how it was working and why it was working. It really allowed you to be more creative I think when you understood the fundamentals. And then when I wanted to become an educator myself and work teaching hair color, they told me that I had to also teach their products. I was like, I am not a retail focused person. I recommend products when they need them, but I am not a sell product person. And they were like, if you were going to educate for us, you have to educate on the products. So they actually sat me in a retail class where this girl was talking about how, when we don't talk about products with our customer or with our clients, we're kind of dooming them to go guess in the shopping experience themselves. So we know a stylist that we have to pick up a cream or a gel or something to make your hair do what we want it to do. We can't just do it with water alone. So she was saying," Make sure that you are picking products that you know are going to work and they're going to actually provide whatever the benefit is. And then tell them what you're using." You don't have to be that pushy salesperson. You don't have to tell them that they have to go home with this thing, but tell them what you're using and how you're using it. Because a lot of times your clients are looking and they're going," Oh, it looks like she's using some sort of a cream, or it looks like she's using some sort of a wax or a paste." Then they go to the aisle and then they start just trying to find what was close to what they think their stylist might have been using.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: There's so much there. It's so overwhelming. It's maddening. But I want to go back to something you said previously, because I think this highlights a lot of things that we talk about here on the podcast as well, which is you had an interest in chemistry, car accident, hair. But God is so good at weaving everything together that now the combination of those skills is taking you in a really big direction. So sometimes what our plan is and his plan is are a little bit different, but it's all weaving together in a weird and wonderful way.

Michelle: Absolutely.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: So as you started to dig into the industry, this is where it gets interesting. As we've talked about our story and our relationship. To me, the interesting part was all of a sudden, now that you're starting to get into how products are made and what works and what doesn't and the retail side of things, now you've got the full view of the industry doing the hair, the customer, the client struggle with the hair, the overwhelming use of products, because there's so many and then realizing that the chemistry of the products and the marketing of the products, that things are not always what they seem. You really have this like you've studied the history of hair care products as well.

Michelle: Well, now at this point, and it kind of was an organic process. I didn't jump in and just try to uncover everything. Like I said it started from a simple place of I'm trying to find good products that work. I started, like I said, working for one company and I loved their products. I love what they did. So all of the things that they were telling me about why these products were working, these special ingredients or this technology, this is why it's working, I just believed them. The more information that I got and the more education that I got from all of these different brands, the more I was coming back to my clients and saying," You need to stop using sulfates. You need to stop using this and you need to stop using that and start using these things." Then as I grew in the industry, I started working for various brands and I started hearing conflicting information where I was going," Wait a second. This is a credible brand, and I like what you guys do. This is a credible brand, and I like what you guys do, but the science behind what you guys are telling me and why it's working are conflicting information." So they can't both be true. So it forced me to start having to dig deeper. It was really a frustrating process because there's not a lot of good science- based information. A lot of the information that's available in hair products is all of the marketing and the materials that the brands have put out there, or you're getting it from the hairstylists and the beauty bloggers that have also gotten the information from the brands. So getting that level deeper was really difficult. So I started really networking with the cosmetic chemists. What really started this was there was a brand that I worked for that was very anti- silicone. Again, their products worked. So I was like silicones are bad. And then this other company had silicones in their product. And I was like," Why are we using this horrible ingredient in your products?" They sat me down with the chemist and he was saying," There's a big difference between high grade silicones and low grade silicones." The price difference is extreme and low grade silicones will build up on the hair and cause all of the bad things that we've come to think of when we think of silicone. So it creates this buildup in coating. But really good high end silicones rinse off of the hair. They're water soluble. So they're not going to create any sort of buildup and they just kind of smooth out that cuticle to give you more shine and smoothness. I didn't believe them at first, because, again, I was such a strong silicones are bad advocate that I took their product with the high grade silicones, and I just inaudible. I was trying to get some sort of a build up in our coating and it wasn't happening. So then all of a sudden I was like, " Okay. Now I can confirm to myself through experimentation that this is true." And the more and more that I started talking to different chemists and started digging a little bit deeper, the more I found that there's a lot of this going on. I'm sure you've shopped and you've seen the no sulfate trend. All of my clients have been coming and asking for sulfate free shampoo. That was another ingredient that I thought I was educated and I was helping save the world from, and I asked a chemist and he's like," What was the scientific research that was done? What study did you guys do to find out that sulfates were bad?" What he told me was sulfates are not bad for your hair. What happened was the market is oversaturated. There's way too many options. And one of the big companies was trying to find a way to differentiate their product. So they did not use sulfates in their product. So they told everybody... Or they did a lot of research. They spent a lot of money into market research and they found people who had had allergic reactions or bad skin sensitivities to sulfates, and they just started highlighting that and blasting it everywhere. There was so much of that, that people thought that this was a common thing for most people to experience, but this guy was telling me that if you look at your toothpaste, it's probably in it. Every major brand of toothpaste has sulfate.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Sulfate are in toothpaste?

Michelle: And it's also in a lot of bottled water. So those people who have these reactions, they are having these reactions, but they're also having to stay away from a lot of major brand toothpastes and water, and all of these other things. You've seen for the majority of the population. There's nothing wrong with using these sulfates. But it's become so villainized that we have... Well, sorry. He said once the rhetoric got out and people started to pick up the story of sulfates are bad, it was easier for other manufacturers to go along with that trend than for them to counter educate because they were saying," If we come out, if these other brands come out and they say," Oh, no. Sulfates are not actually bad," then people are going to think that it's because they don't want to change. So they just go along with it. And then it confirms to us as the consumer, because now all of the products are shifting to sulfate recently. They must have been bad for us. And really, it just got rid of the rich family sense that we all love and we all had to go through this period of time where the beauty industry had to catch up and make that bubbly lather without sulfates.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Everything that you're speaking to, I talk a lot about in my consulting work in coaching leaders and executives that you start with a story and then you go to the money making model and then you create a rhythm that ties the two together. So what's been happening is there's been manipulation of the story to fuel the money- making model. So it's less about the customer and it's less about the customer's hair, but it's what does the customer believe and how can I get them to buy more of my products, whether it's true or not?

Michelle: Yes. I also do business development for a saloon software company. So at that time, I was networking with a lot of executives at these brands and that's where I was starting to hear more of the deeper insight of what's happening. So have you ever had like a lipstick shade or an eye shadow, but it's your favorite shade and now it's discontinued?

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Sure.

Michelle: So I used to think that when it happened, it was because I was the only person that liked that shade. But what I have found out is actually sometimes they will discontinue their most popular shade so that they can come out with four similar shades. And they know that all of the people who were buying that one popular shade will now go out and buy all four of these trying to figure out which one is the closest match to the one that they liked. So they're not bringing us new and more options because it's something that we were wanting. It was a way for them to spend four times more than we would have spent previously.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Which is why we now have, instead of half of an aisle at the department store dedicated to hair care products, there's three or four aisles dedicated to curly and straight and Asian and African- American, and people named Mary who liked to ride bikes. I mean, there's a hair care product for literally every demographic. So what I'm hearing you say is they've really disfragmented the market as a sales tactic, not at all because that is necessary or better for your hair.

Michelle: Right. There was a company that I worked with early on. It was a single shampoo and a single conditioner, and it was good for all hair types. It was originally targeted for curly hair specifically. When I started using it on my curly hair clients, I saw the change in their hair so dramatic that I wanted to use it on my own hair, even though my hair is straight. And I started to see that the health of my hair started to improve. So then I started recommending it to all of my clients. So even people with fine straight hair were able to use the same singular product. But what we saw was it got purchased, I think somewhere in 2012, 2014, and after that product company got purchased, something that had always been just these inaudible staple products for 12, 13 years, now, all of a sudden people were saying that the conditioner didn't seem like it was conditioning as much. People were like," Well, that one is kind of too heavy." So then they came out with an ultra light line and now this line has become this giant, mega, huge, lots of products and lots of options. They broke what was simple and what was so great about just this one product that worked for everybody.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: It's maddening. And I can think of examples and people talking about,"Well, it doesn't work for me anymore. My hair must have changed." Another thing that you uncovered is that we don't blame the product, we blame ourselves. So we say things like," My hormones must be different or my body chemistry must be different," instead of questioning the validity of the product.

Michelle: I'm sorry. You cut out. What did you say?

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Instead of questioning the validity of the product, we start to question ourselves.

Michelle: Yes. And it's amazing. I hear it all the time with my clients where they're like," Oh my hair is just this. Or oh, my hair is just fine, or it just doesn't do well with products, or it just doesn't do..." It's funny to me because a lot of times it's not that they have bad hair, it's that they don't have the right products to be using. You would think with so many options that we would be able to find satisfaction, but as I studied the industry, I really feel like the haircare innovation topped out in the 1980s, it was like there was all these continual improvements, and we were finding pH balancing is great and panthenol is great, and all of these new discoveries. Then we got to good hair care. We didn't need anything more than that. And that's when I feel like product innovation shifted from advancing the products to advertising the product. That's where we've gotten this. Again, there's way too many options and it's not necessary. A lot of the ingredients that they're highlighting that differentiates this product from that product is not really that beneficial to the hair. It's just a way for you to distinguish the two different categories, if that makes sense.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Well, I want to highlight something you said because I think this is important. We've moved away from advancing the product to advertising the product. So everything has become a sales and marketing story without the validity to the customer.

Michelle: Absolutely. Like I said with the sulfates and then the silicones, I feel like the things that we've been taught to look for, to be an educated consumer are all things that they have taught us to look for to be an educated consumer. And the things that we really need is those basics. What is shampoo supposed to do? It's supposed to clean your hair and understanding just the very basic fundamentals of your hair likes oil, it needs oil, but it also needs to be cleansed so that your pores don't get clogged up and it doesn't cause other issues, and that it's acidic. Those are the only things that you really need to know. So a shampoo needs to be cleansing the hair. It needs to be providing the same protection and moisture that your oil is and it needs to be pH balanced. And that's as fluffy as it needs to be.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: So you're coming at this from that perspective in saying," We don't need all of this extra stuff." So you've decided to partner with some chemist and do your own research, and you're in the process of designing a very pure and simple shampoo and conditioner to take all of the mystery and the myth, and the extravagance out of those choices. Is that fair?

Michelle: My stylist mission is to help people find good quality products. I didn't want to create my own product line. I spent over a decade trying to find a quality product that I could just recommend. And what I found is they either are very hard to find at first, or you find them, and it's only a matter of time before they eventually get bought out, or they get reformulated for some reason, and they're not the same product that they used to be.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: You've discovered that there's only a handful of companies that represent most of the products. Is that right?

Michelle: Yeah. Most people don't realize that. I think it's like 88 or 89% of the market is owned by seven major brands. So we think that we're buying Pantene or Head and Shoulders or Herbal Essences, and we don't realize that they're all Proctor and Gamble.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And they're even buying up some of these independents that have started like the one that you referenced for the curly haired that it was good for everybody that her company was bought by one of those big companies, and it changed the formula so it could be more profitable, which also changed the efficacy of the product.

Michelle: Yes. You see this time and time again, and it's not anything new. So kind of, again, studying the history getting way into the inaudible. The conglomerate boom kind of happened around the 1960s. And you saw a lot of these conglomerates initially didn't have any similarities amongst their different companies. It's like an auto repair place and a hair product, and they weren't related industries. So when there was a collapse, because people started to realize that conglomerates were not growing the way that they had been told that they were growing, then a lot of the conglomerates did start to pool like items. So they were taking household products where they were already making soap and shampoo, and then they were adding more shampoos and hairstyling products and things to pad that. They wound up buying a good deal of the independent hair product companies that were doing really well. I think most people don't realize how big the beauty industry is. I mean, right now it's like over$ 300 billion a year spent on haircare every year. So it's a very attractive industry to other industries that are looking to grow and diversify. They wind up buying the small companies and then they don't want to necessarily... Again, their interest isn't necessarily in the consumer's best interest. So they start taking shortcuts. So in the'60s they discovered that pH balancing was important, and you saw all of these advertisements that were educating people on why pH balancing was important. And by the'80s, everything was pH balanced. But pH balancing is an expensive part of the manufacturing process and it's not something that consumers will really know if their shampoo is pH balanced unless they get a pH balancing kit. And who's going to do that?

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Right.

Michelle: But you do see the difference in a pH balance shampoo versus a non- pH balance shampoo. Once the big companies stopped pH balancing, you started to notice a difference between your professional grade shampoos and your over- the- counter shampoos. There was a big divide. So more and more people started shopping professional product as opposed to what was going on in the drug stores. And they didn't like this, so they started buying more and more of these smaller companies. Once they kind of controlled and monopolized the market as a whole, now the small companies, they don't have the marketing budgets to compete. They don't have the platforms for them to get out to a huge number of people. So they grow small and organic and the ones that are doing it right, and they get this cult following, and they grow big enough for more and more people to hear about them, the big companies hear about them too, and they wind up coming in and buying them up. And eventually they start nickel and diming and kind of changing that original formula to fit more of kind of their base formula, if that makes sense.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: So it's probably fair to say that when you go to say Target, there's an aisle dedicated to professional hair care products. It literally is labeled professional.

Michelle: Right. But even that now has been so diluted. So that's where like-

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: It's probably no different than the other stuff. It's just, we've grown accustomed to buying that, which we pay more for.

Michelle: Right. Well, and that's what some people don't even realize when I was studying these Korean hair mask treatments awhile back, there was a hair mask that was by L'Oreal, and there was a hair mask that was by Redken. The L'Oreal one was like$5. The Redken one was like$ 15, and they were the exact same product in different packaging. But literally there was nothing different about either. They've made it so confusing that you don't know when is it worth spending the money? When is it not worth spending the money? I've seen professional products. There was one that a chemist was telling me about that was 100. It was like over$ 100 for a bottle of shampoo. And he was like," What in the world is in that shampoo?" So he bought one, took it back to the lab. And he was like," This was literally like dollar store suave." Like just base foams, really harsh detergent, mostly water.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: But they were selling it based on a marketing story and great packaging?

Michelle: Exactly. And people were eating it up. So I was like," You can't shop based on price. You can't shop based on ingredients." There really isn't a way for us to be an educated consumer. So I hear most of my clients buy their shampoos based on what it smells like. I really can't tell them don't do that because there really isn't a better way for you to know until you buy it and you try it. There's so many products that are bandaid quick fix products that you try and you're like," Oh, this feels good." And then three or four months later, you're like," It doesn't seem like it's really working the same way thing." That's the way most, I think of the haircare products are right now. So then you go shop for something else. And with the companies owning so many different options, they don't really care if you are loyal to this brand or loyal to that brand, because they know at some point in time, you'll spiral right back around to them.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Which is why... You have a name for it. I can't remember what you call it. It's all of the products that we've bought and never used.

Michelle: Oh, the product graveyard.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: The product graveyard. Yeah. That's under our sink in a little plastic container because we can't bring ourselves to throw them away because we spent a lot of money on it.

Michelle: Right. So then a lot of times you go to throw it away and you're like," No, I spent a lot." You're going to stick it out underneath the sink.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I might run out of that other stuff and I need something.

Michelle: Or maybe I'll give it to a friend. The worst is when we say that we'll give it to our kids because we're like," Oh, this wasn't really a great. I'll just give it to my daughter." And then later we're like," Why is your hair all frizzy? Why won't it do anything?" And it's like," Well, oh yeah. I gave you the stuff I wouldn't use."

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: The crappy stuff that I wasn't using.

Michelle: Yes.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: It's so true. And so you have now, because you couldn't find a product to represent, have decided... Because you care about the customer. You care about, are they able to do their hair? Are they getting good quality products? So you come at it with the business philosophy that I recommend to all of my clients, which is know the story first and how the story impacts your customers and the humans in the story. Not a marketing story, but a human to human story. So because that's who you are, you are now creating products that you can stand behind and represent because you know they're good quality products.

Michelle: I found a brand that I did feel like deliberate a good quality product, but again, they were money motivated. And I feel like all of the companies that are money motivated eventually make decisions based on the bottom line, not based on the consumer's best interest. We are creating a shampoo and conditioner now. I feel like it was almost out of necessity, which seems kind of ridiculous. Like I said with how many options, I really fought it for a long time. I just wanted to find something else that I could support because I did not want to get into manufacturing. I like educating and I like doing hair behind the chair. But I found that the premium quality of the ingredients is really probably one of the biggest factors as to whether or not it's going to work or not. And you can't guarantee. Like I was talking about with the silicones, you can see two labels that have the exact same ingredients, but one of them is high grade. One of them is low grade. One of them is going to be great for your hair and one of them is going to be really good for your hair. I guess I selfishly have decided to screen the product so that I could have something that I knew without a doubt was premium quality, because I've had different companies that have made claims. Then now that I've sent some of their products off to chemists to find out the real truth behind them, you find that conflicting information.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And that's the thing is I wanted you on the podcast to debunk the whole industry so that people know that there's so much going on. So you've discovered this, and now it's time for you to put out a product that you can stand behind and that people can trust.

Michelle: I didn't want to just start as shampoo company, because I wanted to start a shampoo company. I felt like there isn't good quality here.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Well, because you already said that in the first five minutes, you need to know why things happen and why things are. And now that you know that, you're like," Okay. Now I can't un- see it, now I have to create one that I could stand behind and say this is why it works."

Michelle: Exactly. And then studying the history of brands and what was kind of their downfall. I feel like there were a lot of these brands that didn't necessarily sell out because they were greedy. I think sometimes they were trying to do the best thing for their business, but when they lost the control, that's when things kind of went awry. And then you've seen other companies where they bring in outside investment firms to help them grow. Then now they're stuck in this quandary between what the investor wants and what they think is going to be in the best interest of their customer. They're stuck between a rock and a hard place, and there's not a good decision. So I think going into this, I was going," If I'm going to make a shampoo and I'm going to make a conditioner, I'm only going to do it if we can do it the right way." And there are too many options. So for us to just create another something that we're planning to sell out in the future is just, I think, creating more chaos. Wanting to simplify that was coming out with something that's going to be tried and true. Our mission is people's lifelong satisfaction. We wouldn't be a company that you grow old with. That's something that I've seen with some of these companies that were great was I was like," Why did you break a good thing? You had loyal people who were so excited and happy to have finally found something that worked for them."

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: How can we learn about this product that you're creating?

Michelle: So if you go to elevatehaircare. com, we just launched the shampoo. And we've been in research and development mode for the conditioner. That is almost finalized as well. If you want to learn about the conditioner, kind of more about our story, why we're doing this, you can visit the website. We're doing a Kickstarter right now. We said we're going to be at this point where we would typically go to an investor and ask them to invest in the business, but we don't want to be loyal to them. We want to be loyal to our consumers. So I've kind of always said," We're going to grow organically." So based on consumer demand.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: So you're going to honor the customer and let the money flow from that.

Michelle: I feel like at this point in time I've talked to enough people about the things that they fight with. I talked to enough chemists about what is the good science behind what... Going back to basics, what are those things that have worked over time and then studying the different business models, focus on customer satisfaction. If we grow and we diversify, it's because there was a consumer need or things that people were voicing not something that we decided. So I would be perfectly happy if we just had one shampoo and one conditioner and we just stay there forever. If people want something else or it need something else, we're happy to explore that. But I don't ever want us to diversify into styling products. There's tons of styling products that work really well. We'll educate on it in the future and more point people to other brands that work well rather than needing to reinvent the wheel. So I'm only making shampoo and conditioner because I felt like there wasn't a good one. I just simplified the process because we didn't want you to have to choose between color, hair color. Maybe you have colored hair and your hair is curly, and your hair is fine, and you're going," Which one of these shampoos do I need?" Going through the manufacturing process, they asked me if I wanted to do that with our formula. They were like," Do you want us to add a couple of these extracts, so you can label this one curly and label this one volumizing, and label this and that?" It was like," No. That's the whole, what we're coming against trying to simplify this." Basically we took the people who had the hardest time with shampoo or the people who had the hardest time with conditioner and what they fought with, and we made sure that the shampoo and conditioner addressed all of those issues, so that anybody in between-

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: So it'll work for anybody.

Michelle: Yep.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Oh, I love it. I love it. Well, we will put the link to the site where they can get more information to learn about the product, and also just learn about you and your story, but also to participate in the Kickstarter and be a part of this great launch that you've got going. So another part of the Kickstarter program is that you're kind of involved in the iteration and the things that you're learning about the product. So tell us a little bit about what happens when you become a part of the Kickstarter campaign?

Michelle: Well, there's a couple of different rewards to your options. So you can either just get the products that are normally available on the website at a little bit of a discount, but we have some unique reward tiers that actually allow you to kind of be involved and engaged in the process with us. There's been several things that isn't really a right answer. Here are different problems people have faced. Here's different solutions that we can provide, but which one is the right one? We're putting those different options as reward tier so that people can basically vote with their dollar on which things that they want to see come to life.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Well, I'm happy to get the information out to our listeners and give them links to all the information. I've been a fan of yours since we met. So I'm excited to support you and to finally not have to shop up and down the haircare aisle for an hour looking for the right product, knowing that you've done all the hard work to figure out the right product. So thank you for being here.

Michelle: Well, thank you so much for having me, and if anybody has any hair questions at all, please reach out to us, again at elevatehaircare. com.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Awesome.( singing) This is Rebecca Fleetwood Hession. Thanks so much for being here. We'd love to stay connected. We can do that if you jump into the online community at badasswomenscouncil. community. We've got lots of cool people in there already. And if you come in, it'll just be cooler.( singing)