“Clean isn’t just a label; it’s a commitment to innovation,” said Mara Roszak, celebrity hairstylist and founder of Rōz.
At the annual Los Angeles Beauty Forum on Oct. 6, Roszak addressed a room packed with fellow beauty founders and afficiandos, explaining how steadfast determination and resilience is at the heart of her pro-first business and its clean product line.
To start, Roszak asked the audience if they’d struggled with hair at some point in their lives, to which an overwhelming majority raised their hands. She then candidly revealed her former hair insecurity: frizz. As a teenager, Roszak said, she was the only girl with a “frizzy mop of hair.” With tenacity and a lot of trial and error, she’s since been able to tame the mop, not an erratic hair on stage today.
Mara Roszak speaking at the Los Angeles Beauty Forum.
From styling her friends at her house in Laurel Canyon, Calif., to working with the past three Best Actress Oscar winners, opening her salon Mare, and launching Rōz amid the pandemic, Roszak has more than perfected her craft now, and she owes it all to her clients.
“My decades behind the chair have taught me to listen. It’s such an important skill — listening to my clients, listening to their hair and listening to women who wanted to feel seen and look like the best version of themselves,” Roszak said. “I’ve learned everything from that intimacy with my clients, understanding their pain points with their hair and logging it all for the future development of Rōz.”
Performance and trust accelerate the growth of the business, Roszak noted. She moved on to reveal one need she’s addressed within the industry: the lack of clean solutions. Roszak then explained how she and Rōz have managed to lead from all points on this, innovating new formulas and manufacturing sustainable packaging. “At my own salon, I couldn’t find the products my clients were asking for. There just wasn’t anything, especially in this more prestige market, that I felt like gave the performance and that level of clean that I was looking for and that they were looking for,” she explained. “So we proved with Rōz that you can do both.”
With prestige hair care on the upswing, Roszak is ensuring Rōz is up to speed with where the market is moving. “None of this is easy. Being a founder is not easy. Innovating best in class products and formulating is not easy, but I do it because I love hair and I love how it makes people feel,” she finished.