Naman Shrestha
Styling highly textured hair has always been a time-consuming and sometimes frustrating chore for many Black girls. The Mint hair product is here to make it a much smoother process, helping more and more people accept and embrace their natural hair. When the founder of The Mint by Richualist presented the product and highlighted its features in front of the sharks on ABC’s ‘Shark Tank’ season 15, they hoped to land a favorable deal with one of the sharks. Ever since The Mint was featured on the show, its popularity as well as its sales have shown significant growth.
The Mint Hair Product: Who Are They And What Do They Do?
When Dawn Myers, a graduate of the Howard University School of Law, came across a ‘Shark Tank’ episode from 2017, little did she know that her entire life was about to change in a few years. After watching the episode that featured the Sleep Styler, Dawn noticed that the hair product would not work on textured hair. This got her contemplating how Black women, who usually have textured hair, spend dollars on their hair. Thus, as soon as she realized that she could fill the market gap and provide women of all colors access to a product that solved their hair problem, the idea for The Mint took shape.
In the middle of all this, Dawn began her career by working part-time as Director of Programming for Startups Ignite (from June 2017 to May 2019) and Black Girl Ventures (from March 2018 to April 2020). In January 2020, she bagged a job as Director, DC, at The Vinetta Project, where she worked until January 2022. As of now, she serves as a part-time Lecturer and Adjunct Professor at Carnegie Mellon University and Georgetown University, respectively. Coming back to Dawn’s inspiration for The Mint by Richualist, the ‘Shark Tank’ episode ignited the fuel but her desire to change the lives of Black women for the better drove her to make a brand of her own.
When she was studying law, Dawn embraced her natural texture by cutting off her processed and damaged straightened hair and found that to be life-changing. While she encouraged others to embrace their natural textures, she also realized that many women with textured hair spent about 3 hours or more styling their hair. So, she created The Mint hair products to meet the needs of Black women and others with textured hair. During her entrepreneurial journey, Dawn was reportedly diagnosed with stage three colorectal cancer, due to which she had to undergo various treatments, including chemotherapy and radiation. But she was determined to turn her vision into reality so she gave her everything, sacrificing her home and her retirement savings.
The Mint by Richualist is an all-in-one styling device that detangles, conditions, and styles textured hair with just a single stroke, saving loads of time for the user. The product warms liquid hair products between 130 and 140 degrees Fahrenheit, maximizing the benefits of the hair products as well as minimizing waste. Some of the other beneficial features of the hair styling product are that it is ultra compact, increases moisture retention, and decreases shrinkage. Cutting down the time spent by women on hair care to half, The Mint makes everyday life much easier and more convenient.
The Mint Hair Product Update: Where Are They Now?
Having positively impacted the hair care industry already, The Mint by Richualist had the potential to make even more waves. The scope was so evident that in 2022, it received funding of $1 million, which allowed Dawn Myers to take the brand to the next level by focusing heavily on the development and manufacturing of The Mint. Strategically using the funds, she collaborated with multiple partners to amplify the reach of the product. Given the product’s significant impact in such a short span, The Mint by Richualist won the Invention of the Year award presented by Technical.ly in late 2023.
If you wish to invest in the product and check if The Mint hair product is worth the hype, you can purchase it exclusively from Richualist’s official website. As of writing, it is available for purchase at a discounted price of $298, while its original price is $400. Moreover, in an attempt to bring the product to the masses, the company has set a goal of raising $165,000. In April 2024, Dawn revealed that the parent company, Richualist, was in the middle of a fundraising round for The Mint. Apart from featuring on ‘Shark Tank,’ the product has been able to leverage micro-influencers to advertise the hair styling product.
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