Sam McKnight on reinventing haircare – and breaking it down in the compost bin

Irish Times

2 days ago

Celebrity hair stylist Sam McKnight has worked with everyone from
Princess Diana
and
Kate Moss
to
Karl Lagerfeld
and
Chanel
. Over the past eight years he has focused on developing his own styling range, Hair by Sam McKnight, which launched in 2017 based on four dry styling products he actually uses every day.
'We started with
Cool Girl Barely There Texture Mist
(€34 from Brown Thomas) because, at the time, most texturisers were really heavy,' he explains. 'You couldn't brush them out. So we created a texture mist that everyone could use – professionally or at home. It was kind of fool proof. We called it Cool Girl because I wanted to give people more of an idea, not just a product name.
'When we're doing shows or shoots, you usually turn up the night before to plan the look, whether for a runway or a magazine cover. And nine times out of 10, the face on the mood board was Kate Moss. Everyone wanted that 'cool girl' look – or at least a bit of it. So that's why we called it Cool Girl. And we put it in a pink bottle.
Hair by Sam McKnight
'We called our dry shampoo
Lazy Girl
(€29 from Brown Thomas). It was the first clear dry shampoo, not white. And Easy Up-Do was a really strong texturiser, but also one of the first with conditioners, so you could actually brush it out. Modern hair styling, for me, is about hair that feels like you can touch it, brush it – it still feels like hair.'
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McKnight is careful not to call it a 'professional' brand. 'That word feels a bit clichéd and overused to me,' he says. 'I see it as more 'expert', because this is what I do every day. It's personal. And it had to be local – made in England, where I live. I didn't want it produced somewhere else, with one meeting every two months. It had to be hands on.'
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Sam McKnight: From window cleaner to the world's most celebrated hair stylist
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]
Hair by Sam McKnight has expanded to include a wide range of hair care and styling products, and the latest addition to the range is
Pure Genius 98% Natural Scalp Restoring Oil
(€42 from Brown Thomas), which claims to be the world's first 100 per cent compostable (including the bottle) prewash treatment. It's a bold move in an industry not exactly known for sustainability, but a natural next step for someone who's always been ahead of the curve.
The idea, McKnight says, came during lockdown, when he found himself spending more time in his garden, and looking more closely at the benefits of plants for hair. 'We've always used plants in our products, but I thought it was time to go further,' he says. The result is Pure Genius – a 98 per cent natural, scalp-restoring prewash oil that offers an alternative to the chemical-heavy treatments so many people, including McKnight himself, avoid.
Hair by Sam McKnight Pure Genius 98% Natural Scalp Restoring Oil (€42 from Brown Thomas)
'I have psoriasis, and I use this,' he says. 'It's about cleansing the scalp and putting nourishment back in – helping the follicle, the roots, the hair at the source. And that keeps your hair healthy.' It's designed to be used just once a week, 10 minutes before washing. 'It's quite simple,' he adds, 'but it works.'
What wasn't simple, especially in the beginning, was the packaging. Hair oil, as McKnight explains, is notoriously tricky to bottle. Open it a few times, especially with a thicker, more viscous formula, and you'll almost always get some leakage. It was a problem he and his team were determined to solve – but they also wanted to go further, ideally by making the packaging biodegradable.
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]
'We started working with this brilliant company that grows a substance in their lab that's completely zero waste and plastic free,' he says. The substance is called biopolymer, which is made by natural microbes and derived from plants. 'I was so excited when they showed it to us. The whole thing breaks down in 12 months. It's home compostable, you can just fling it in the bin. It was a major feat for them, and we were so lucky to have it. We'd found our ideal packaging.'
Innovative as it is, the compostable bottle is just one part of a much bigger sustainability puzzle for the beauty industry.
'With aerosols, unfortunately, there's no real alternative yet,' McKnight admits. 'As much as we care about sustainability, the end goal of our products is performance. That has to come first. After that, it's about being as sustainable as we can be.'
The brand has already made progress – the fully recyclable packaging on other products is made from at least 30 per cent post-consumer recycled plastic, and they are aiming to move towards 100 per cent – but McKnight is pragmatic about the challenges. 'It's about making steps that are realistic and affordable from a business perspective, not just token gestures. We're trying really hard to do our best, while still giving people what they want, which is great hair.'
This week I'm loving ... Rituals The Ritual of Yozakura Shimmering Body Oil
Rituals The Ritual of Yozakura Shimmering Body Oil (€25.90 from Rituals)
There are few summer-inspired body products I've used recently that smell as good as this one. The Ritual of Yozakura Shimmering Body Oil (€25.90 from Rituals) is described by the brand as a decadent 'after-hours upgrade'. It contains a blend of three hues of shimmer – rose, gold, and silver – in a non-sticky, lightweight dry oil formula scented with Yoshino cherry and black rice extract. Exquisite.