Nancy Twine left her vice president role at Goldman Sachs to create a clean, high-performance hair care line focused on scalp “skinfication.” Launched in 2013, Twine became the youngest black woman to launch a line at Sephora. Ten years after Briogéo sells 40,000 units of its award-winning Don’t Despair Restorative Treatment Mask each month. Briogeo is one of the best-selling clean hair care brands, free from harsh sulfates, silicones, phthalates, parabens, DEA and artificial colors with plant-based ingredients that detoxify, hydrate and protect all hair types and textures.
Twine decided to leave his career in finance after losing his mother, which prompted him to do some soul-searching about how she spent her time and impacted the world: “My mother was actually a doctor and chemist, so growing up we made a lot of our own products at home. Partly due to the fact that many products on the market didn’t cater to our skin type or hair texture. So we took matters into our own hands, creating our own formulas that were hydrating enough for our hair type, slippery enough to actually detangle our hair, and all those things we were missing in the market. During this soul-searching journey of trying to figure out what I wanted to do next, I thought back to how much I loved making these clean but highly functional beauty products, seeing that there was a void in care clean capillaries. No other brand was truly creating effective products for all hair types. It was an “aha” moment where I was able to take this idea and what I was doing with my mom and turn it into a business.
As Twine reflects on Briogeo’s success, she attributes the brand’s growth to being first to market at the right time and in the right space. “I started Briogeo while I was still working at Goldman Sachs and it was a really interesting time to get into the beauty industry because there was so much white space. We were the first clean hair care brand at Sephora, but now there are dozens of hair care brands at Sephora in this category as it has grown significantly. I think back to what ultimately made Briogeo famous. We pioneered the clean hair care revolution while focusing on sustainability before it became a more prevalent topic in the beauty industry. We were also the first prestige hair care lines to truly focus on all hair textures and types. When I started my brand, most of us were in the process of starting our businesses. There weren’t many faces that looked like me when starting a business in the industry. A few years after launch, we also saw the rise of YouTube beauty influencer and subscription boxes like FabFitFun and Ipsy. This allowed us to develop a core community that took us to the next level in addition to continuing to add new innovations like Scalp Revival,” she shared.
In 2022, Briogeo was sold to Wella for a nine-figure price. “The sale to Wella was an important step for me and it was very strategic because I knew that if we wanted to continue to grow, I could continue to raise capital and dilute or find a permanent partner who would support the business from capital and resource perspective. .”
In addition to strengthening Briogeo’s leadership, the brand is now present in salons across the country with Salon Centric. “Briogeo is doubling down on innovation and that’s why it was such a strategic decision to partner with Wella, whose core competency is in hair care, so that we can not only leverage their expertise and professionalism to help us truly win in this new salon category. , but also to help us continue to stay at the forefront of innovation, especially as the category becomes more saturated, there are more players innovating in the space at the same time,” added Twine.
Twine has also expanded his personal and entrepreneurial activities as Briogeo continues to grow. Over the past few years, she has actively invested in several startups in the beauty, wellness, food and beverage, technology and real estate sectors. She is also considered a leading expert in entrepreneurship, growth mindset and women’s leadership. Her combined experience as a founder, investor and mentor led her to start NancyTwine.com where she shares a multidimensional perspective with her community. “The site is here to help support all stages of female entrepreneurship, from women considering leaving their jobs to start a new business, to a growing startup, a founder raising money in venture capital for the first time, up to the founder after exit. There were so many things I had to handle on my own as a new entrepreneur, which came with a lot of mistakes. My goal is to be able to help people on their journey to not make some of the mistakes I made along the way. But it’s also important to focus on the whole human outside of your business, which is why I talk about things like wellness, nutrition, self-care, relationships, etc. I learned that it’s really hard to be successful with your business if you’re not also in a successful situation with yourself. Because at the end of the day, when you’re an entrepreneur and growing your business, you are your greatest asset.
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