Amid the uptick in hair care brands and an industry saturated with new products every week––launching a hair line with just one SKU is a necessary shock. At least this is the approach luxury textured hair care brand, LOBIE, launching today, by Anastasia MacKay, took.
Their single product, the Peptide Leave In Mask, bridges the gap between textured hair and quiet luxury. “There are so many products out there, from shampoo to conditioner, to co-wash to deep conditioner,” MacKay tells ESSENCE. “Why not just focus on launching one product?”
The Leave In Mask is a curl cocktail of hair-penetrating peptides and over 100 amino acids. Ingredients, including hydrolyzed wheat protein and vitamin E, make up the LOBIE Complex; formulated to maintain color vibrancy, reduce breakage, frizz, and boost moisture retention.
MacKay first developed a career as a model working with clients like MAC, Maybelline and L’Oreal. “I’ve always been in the beauty and hair space,” she says. However, the impact of hair tools and unfit products severely damaged her hair. As work slowed down during the pandemic, she intended to rebuild her hair health and simultaneously found a gap in the luxury textured haircare space.
“I went to Ulta, Target, and Sephora every week to try what’s on the market in general,” she says. “The brands I resonate with, these beautiful, aesthetic brands, are never specifically tailored to textured hair and they don’t work for me.” To bridge the gap, “LOBIE’s mission is to elevate the textured hair care space to bring a premium brand with textured-specific products.”
Housed in 100 percent sugarcane packaging, the Peptide Leave In Mask is both renewable and biodegradable. Designed to reduce waste and minimize carbon emissions, LOBIE– meaning “Love” in her native language Surinamese– gives a simple, effective formula to both product and packaging. “I really focused on making sure there is enough in a tube that could last at least two months rather than two weeks,” MacKay says of the $40 product.
Now, the Amsterdam-born founder is bicoastal, running between Los Angeles and New York, building a community through LOBIE. “I feel like I wanted to bring a part of me and part of my culture into the brand,” she says. With new hair care products coming in the future (hint: ones that cleanse and hydrate), every intention behind LOBIE ties back to its namesake. Specifically, self-love and “loving your natural state.”
The new LOBIE Peptide Leave In Mask is available now at lobie.com.
