Get to know Jen Atkin
OUAI has been on our radar for a while now. It’s one of those brands that everyone is talking about because it’s bloody fantastic. Packed full of goodness, OUAI hair products leave your tresses feeling fresh and smelling like you’ve just stepped out of the salon. Goals 🤌 And in case you were wondering - it's pronounced ‘WAY’, meaning yes, in that casual Parisian style.
Behind every great brand is an equally amazing founder. In this case, its female boss and hairstylist to the stars, Jen Atkin. In our mission to unlock sides of the beauty industry, you often don’t see, we’re peeling back the layers and learning more about the people behind our favorite products — what makes them tick and how their journey started.
Jen, The Hairstylist.
Raised in Utah in the Mormon community, Jen’s small-town upbringing was a far cry from the bright city lights that would eventually lead to her celebrity career. While Jen’s family encouraged the youngster to pursue an ordinary Mormon life, her interest in the world of hair and beauty began to pique at an early age.
Speaking to Pop Sugar, Jen revealed that she was a huge fan of Barbie and would often cut and style the hair of her dolls when she was younger. She added: “I was also obsessed with pop culture, especially MTV and the makeover scenes in movies. I loved the idea of transformation. In high school, it was the '90s, and hairstyling was so fun back then. It was all about the Spice Girls, Gwen Stefani, Björk."
It wasn’t until the age of 19 that she finally realized her passion should be turned into a career. Living in Salt Lake City at the time, Jen found herself at dinner with actor Dave Matthews after a day of shooting the film Where the Red Fern Grows. Following some casual conversation about her goals, Matthews encouraged Jen to move to Los Angeles in order to make beauty her career. With $300 in her account, Jen explained that she took a leap of faith and moved to California.
Starting work as a receptionist at a hair salon, she quickly became salon manager before assisting Madonna’s hairstylist, Andy LeCompte. Her talent for hair was evident quickly — and the celebrity clients started flooding in. It wasn’t long before she was styling Nicole Richie and Lindsay Lohan before eventually being introduced to the next wave of celebrities, such as Kim and Khloe Kardashian. Since then, Jen has worked with everyone from Dua Lipa and Katy Perry to the Hadids and Chrissy Teigen.
Jen, The Entrepreneur
All that hairstyling expertise put Jen in an excellent position to help others on their haircare journey. She became determined to launch a brand that spoke to people like herself and her community — simple, relatable, and good quality.
In 2016, OUAI was born. However, it had taken plenty of graft to land investors and see the brand come to fruition at a time when hairstyling and product lines were still quite a male-dominated. However, her products spoke for themselves.
Starting off life as a digital brand, Jen’s social media following and celebrity clientele helped to raise awareness of the slick new brand. OUAI quickly gained a cult following and has now become a staple of a lot of people’s hair care routines. What makes OUAI great is its beautiful packaging, affordable prices, and high-quality ingredients that really make your hair feel fabulous. The brand has even ventured into fragrance and body care and continues upward as the go-to brand for hair lovers.
“I’ve struggled to find a haircare brand that my friends and I could relate to. It was my goal to take these conversations and create the first socially-connected haircare brand," Jen is quoted as saying about OUAI.
Amid this success, Jen has always stayed humble. She credits her growth to being surrounded by other inspiring female mentors and thinks it's important to support other women in their own entrepreneurial journey. Speaking to Tatler Asia, Jen explained: “When I first started Ouai, I wanted to have conversations with female founders, I wanted to know their journey. I reached out to Sonia Kashuk and I’m really lucky I have Kris Jenner on speed dial. I think it is really, really important to have mentors.”
Being a force to be reckoned with in the hairstyling world, Jen didn’t stop there. She then pursued the launch of Mane Addicts. Inspired by hairstyling heavyweights Sam McKnight and Serge Normant, Jen set about building a hair-centric community that could help to connect artists and discover new trends and products in the making. And, if styling the stars and running a successful business and website wasn’t enough, in 2020 she also found the time to pen a memoir Blowing My Way to the Top, that has become a best-selling guide for all dreamers and doers.
Jen, The Inspiration
An entrepreneur, hairstylist, mom, and all-around inspiration. What really stands out about Jen’s journey is her commitment to others, both through her products and her work. Uplifting other hairstylists and boss girls in the making, Jen’s work is a testament to perseverance and making the world just that little bit more exciting.
"I would hope that I'm inspiring people to be the best that they can be, but also to keep in mind their community and serving others while they are bettering themselves,” she added, according to Tatler.
By championing the people behind our favorite brands, we get to learn the human stories that have contributed to our very own beauty routines. As a growing beauty community, that’s something to be really excited about. From amazing people like Jen, we can learn, get inspired, and continue to transform our own world of beauty one hair product at a time.
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