Fresh out of college, when I started traveling weekly for work, I quickly found that my hair and skin started to suffer. My hair, in particular, would become almost greasy as the roots would get build up, making it especially difficult and unpredictable to style. Eager to understand why my hair routine seemed to work seamlessly at home, but felt a bit disastrous on the road, I started to research the water quality of every destination.
At the time, I was living in Boston, which is considered to have the cleanest tap water in the nation coupled with the strictest standards. Every other place I was traveling to had extremely hard water which was the result of high calcium carbonate and chemicals like chlorine being added for purification purposes. Los Angeles and the state of California have some of the hardest water in the nation.
When we moved to LA, in the name of hair health, the first purchase I made for our apartment was a shower head that filtered the water. After trying apple cider vinegar treatments and a myriad of products on the market to no avail on prior trips, filtering our water seemed like the most logical, and also color-safe option.
When we were house hunting, I was that strange person who would ask the realtor if the home had a water filtration system and the answer was always “no.” When it was time to move into our home, we purchased a full home water filtration system only to discover way too late that installation was going to require opening up walls. I temporarily abandoned my quest for clean shower water because the shower head options on the market were straight up ugly - there’s honestly no better way to say it. Within a month or two, however, I was having to do scalp treatments at least once per week and when I saw my colorist, she started proactively adding in cleansing and detoxifying treatments to my service due to the build up.
Enter, Jolie. It’s a filtered shower head that’s highly effective AND stylish. It comes in multiple finishes, but I especially love the fact that we were able to choose a matte black option that matched our existing shower knobs. It’s so incredibly obvious that the market was desperate for a solution like this. The execution of the product is excellent. I’m not kidding when I say that within just one shower, I could see a difference in my hair. Installation instructions were incredibly easy and every 3 months a new filter is shipped straight to your doorstep. Since installing our Jolie shower head 2 months ago, my hair has felt soft and clean and I haven’t had to do any masks or treatments for build up. Jolie is here to stay. I’m obsessed and I don’t mean that lightly.
About the Founder
Jolie was founded by Ryan Babenzien in 2021 as his second major entrepreneurial pursuit. His first was founding GREATS, the Brooklyn-born sneaker brand manufactured in Italy and known for clean, neutral styles with premium quality at a more reasonable price point. While countless sneakers are sold via the direct-to-consumer model today, GREATS was one of the first to approach the market in this way. The company was ultimately acquired by Steve Madden in 2019 and Ryan stepped away from his role a year later.
As Ryan reflected on his next pursuit, he was passionate about creating a company that differed from the footwear space, specifically pivoting away from the known challenges of sizing and high returns. Before starting Jolie, Ryan one day noticed that the health of his hair and skin were strangely off and started researching tap water, immediately learning about the many contaminants. Discovering that plumbing pipes in the US and abroad are generally one-size-fits-all made this endeavor even more attractive.
Ryan views Jolie not simply as a shower head / hardware company but as an overall skin and hair health company. Jolie is considered “step 0” when it comes to one’s beauty routine because using truly clean water will only increase the efficacy of the products one uses.
I’m personally very excited to see how Jolie continues to scale and expand its overall offering. To date, a key part of their scale has been organic social media promotion from customers who love the product so much so, that they will sing its praises to anyone who will listen. I guess you could consider this my way of doing just that. If you want to hear more about Ryan and Jolie - sweetly named after his wife - check out his interview with Rob Dyrdek.
To clean water, healthy skin, and frizz-free, build-up free hair. Who doesn’t love that!?
x jz
Images | 1 - 2 | @b.g.mckay | 3 | The Proof Wellness
Note: I do not get paid for nor make money off of this post. All opinions are my own.