Blake Lively and I meet on the balcony of her room at Fouquet’s, a chic hotel in downtown Manhattan with a taste of Parisian charm. She’s just finished speaking with a group of editors and is trying to sneak in a quick lunch—a Caesar salad with salmon on the side—before a campaign photo shoot. It’s not for a blockbuster movie; instead, it’s her latest entrepreneurial endeavor, a new hair care line called Blake Brown.
“Brown” pays homage to the actress’s father, Ernie, as it was his surname at birth. “I wanted to make it more intimate and personal. Going with my dad’s name felt like a facet of me,” she says.
Blake Brown has been seven years in the making. Lively wanted to create a line at “a more affordable price point that was clean, [and] smelled amazing.” She admits being previously accustomed to a luxury hair care routine of nourishing and strengthening formulas that worked for her hair, but was prohibitively expensive. “It’s, like, $200 to make my hair not broken,” Lively confesses. “At the time, I could only afford one [product]. Eventually, I was able to afford the whole set, and it changed my hair.”
With the belief that everyone should have access to great hair care products, she turned her focus toward creating products with a palatable price tag and “same level of performance” that she would not be “nervous” to share with a family member. “I’ve been using [some of] these products for about four years now. The four main [products in the collection] I’ve been using [on my hair] for about two years,” she shares.
Currently, Blake Brown offers eight hair care products to help you achieve healthy hair by finding the right balance of strength and moisture. The line toggles between two systems: nourishing and strengthening, each containing its own shampoo and mask. To help achieve Lively’s red carpet-caliber hairstyles, she created a pre-shampoo mask, a leave-in “potion,” mousse, and a dry shampoo. Everything is under $25, and Lively refused to compromise on ingredient selection. “[If] you have a better ingredient, like [in] food, it’s gonna taste better. If you have a better ingredient in your hair, your hair is gonna look better—it’s healthier,” she says.
Lively’s own hair care regimen inspired the collection. For example, she shares that she never uses regular conditioner—so there isn’t one in the line. “You can’t have beautifully styled hair if you don’t care for it,” she says, running her fingers through her healthy, shiny strands. She reveals that every hairdresser on her movie sets or for red carpet appearances provides her with a shampoo and a mask to prep her hair. “It’s wild to me that [masks] are more of a novelty in the mass market,” she says.
As for how Lively likes to use each product, the focus always goes back to nourishing her hair and its health. “I’ll spray my hair [with the leave-in potion] and put it in a ballerina bun for a few days,” she admits. For her, it’s healthy hair first, style second.
In addition to efficacy, fragrance is important to Lively, with several scents in the collection inspired by her favorite aromas. “I never understood why the fragrances in hair care were never like any of the perfumes I would buy,” she says. From sandalwood to vanilla to santal to nectar scents, the fragrances differ as I open each jar and bottle, but the underlying smell is always warm and sensual. According to Lively, achieving this olfactory result was not easy. “It’s harder to get amber and sandalwood to cut through hair care [products]. That’s [why] you’ll get a lot of florals or citrus in hair care because it [easily] cuts through the formula,” she explains.
All Blake Brown products are vegan, cruelty-free, and formulated with clean ingredients to help nourish, strengthen, and style your hair. The packaging utilizes recycled materials to create as little waste as possible, too.
Blake Brown will be available to shop exclusively at Target and on target.com and blakebrownbeauty.com beginning August 4. Below, Lively shares more about the creation of her newest brand, her scent memories, and her best hair care advice.
What makes your hair care line different from the other celebrity brands on the market?
I don’t compare [my line] to other celebrity brands. I [compare it] to other hair brands in general. I have an unfair advantage in that I have a louder microphone to talk about my company than another start-up because of that celebrity brand label. But because of that, you have a responsibility to make it good. You can’t just ask people to buy your products because they liked a movie or a show you were in. That’s not respectful to your consumer.
I’m fascinated that you drew the logo and helped design the packaging. Can you share more about that process?
We had a great packaging designer, Chris, who came up with a lot of different shapes and ideas. We were doing a riff on “B” shapes because people in my personal life call me B. It would be the two Bs for Blake Brown. [The logo shape is] a nod to a honeycomb, but it’s two Bs—a backward B, a forward B—and a hive filled in funky. That’s how I drew the logo.
The packaging was similar to the shampoo bottle, but the mask was just something that was next to it, and they should fit and complement each other. It’s like family members; everything should fit together and complement each other. On the mask, [the words are] de-bossed, but on the pre-mask and shampoos, they’re embossed.
What’s your piece of best hair care advice?
Treat your hair well, and it will treat you well. Listen to your hair—that’s the biggest thing. I don’t follow any formula. People will ask, “How often do you wash [your hair]?” And it changes! Just listen to your hair. If you put stuff in your hair, you’ll be able to feel [if your] hair responded. In any good relationship, there’s great communication and mutual respect. I know it feels silly to anthropomorphize hair in that way, but it’s true. I do listen to my hair.
You named the brand after your father. Is he a hair guy?
[Laughs] No! My mom would color his hair with shoe polish. She did a good job at it, though. It was nice. [Laughs] My mom is such a nut.
What scents do you enjoy?
I like woody things: ambers, peppercorns, or things that have that. Similar to the strength and nourish formulas [in my collection]. I love something down the middle. I love feminine smells and more masculine smells; maybe we shouldn’t call them that. I know it’s shorthand for how you identify something that’s woody or smokier or is more commonly in masculine smells…I distinctly like both, but I don’t necessarily love them on their own.
Do you have a scent memory attached to these products?
It’s now my family. That’s what they smell like. I’m so proud of it because I worked so hard on it. I’d only put the best on them. That’s all we use. It’s something that I created on people I created. That’s crazy to me!
I’m a bit surprised that you started with hair before getting into the fashion game, considering you famously dress yourself.
I love clothes. I love a number. Hire me to be a costume designer for some crazy set. But you’ll see my love of design through [my hair care collection].
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Danielle James is the Digital Beauty Director of ELLE.com. Previously, she was the Fashion and Beauty Director of HelloBeautiful.com and MadameNoire.com. She’s written for The Cut, InStyle, Allure, The Business of Fashion, Nylon, Essence, Good Housekeeping, and more. She enjoys sailing, thrifting, Japanese whiskey, Naomi Campbell’s runway walk, and Rihanna in the comment section.