With his hair care products featured on Hollywood film and TV sets, stocked in over 100 stores around NZ and championed by World’s Denise L’Estrange-Corbet, prominent Kiwi trichologist Nigel Russell has just launched his range of products called Holistic Hair.
Russell, who is also a Servilles senior hair stylist and tutor, is well on the way to achieving his goal of creating the “next big thing” in natural products along the lines of Trilogy and Living Nature. Stockists are already selling his range in Australia with further expansions into that market under way, a distribution deal has been signed in Thailand, there are stockists in Japan, and the online store caters to clients as far flung as the USA, UK and even the West Indies.
Russell says despite offers that were ostensibly alluring, a very deliberate business decision was made early on to avoid large distribution deals with tiny margins and reduced control over the product. “We have worked very hard to be the distributors of our range, creating our own channels door by door, and harnessing the power of word of mouth referrals,” he says.
Holistic Hair was born when Russell, a certified trichologist, decided to use aromatherapy oils and other natural and organic ingredients to resolve his client’s hair issues rather than providing “band aid solutions”. It’s this unique combination that has wowed users of the range including Hollywood stylists on Spartacus and Avatar, and local stylists on Boy and all of the Outrageous Fortune seasons – and it has set Russell and his business partners up for big things globally.
“Consumers have become more and more enthusiastic about using natural cosmetics and skincare products as concerns grow about the number of chemicals that have historically been used in these products,” Russell says. “I believe it’s just as important to use natural, nourishing ingredients on the hair and scalp and what’s more, everything we need to have fantastic hair we can find in nature, and we are just so lucky that we have these ingredients right here in this country.”
Russell believes another other unique selling point for his products is that consumers get a piece of “Nigel in a bottle”. “What this means is that I have poured years of research and experience with the issues my clients have had, from psoriasis and hair thinning to damaged and over-processed hair, into these products, for others to benefit,” Russell says. “In effect I think of every person who uses my products as my client, to the point where they can contact me through the website with any queries or issues they have with their hair and overall wellbeing and I will endeavour to help them – to me the hair and the body are totally connected, it’s a holistic approach, hence the name Holistic Hair.”
Holistic Hair uses New Zealand companies to source their ingredients, including certified organic sea salt from the South Island and NZ harvested D YC apple cider vinegar. They also use “living water”, which Russell describes as a balanced range of healthy minerals and electrolytes important for energy and vitality, with exceptionally fine filtration reducing heavy metals, THMs, odour, Chlorine and other organic matter found in tank, tap and rain water.
Award winning kiwi company Link Plas produces the bottles for the range which are (of course) pet plastic recyclable. This type of plastic also assists in protecting the essential oil ingredients that are central to the range - a factor that Russell says is often overlooked in most “so called” natural products.