Truly, it was a matter of time. Louise Rusk is Scottish. Jessica Manguikian is half Scottish and half Armenian. Rusk hails from a family of hairstylists. So does Manguikian. Rusk runs a multimillion-dollar company—yup, Manguikian too. When the two decided to launch a one-of-a-kind, possibly miraculous hair product, you could almost hear the blowdryers drop out of salon stylists’ hands in a unified, “It’s about time, lasses.”
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Jess & Lou (jessandloubeauty.com), the women’s debut product, is tagged as a “five minute resQ hair therapy” in a normally 20-minute treatment in a salon. The instructions are simple: Put it on dry hair. Coat the bottom half. Wait five minutes. Then, jump in the shower to wash it off. The result: ridiculously shiny, healthy-looking hair. “Our whole aim is to solve women’s beauty challenges in as little time as possible,” Rusk says. “And empower [women].”
Now the director and principal hairstylist of Green Tangerine Spa & Salon, Rusk began her entrepreneurial foray in the ’90s, when she and her husband, Irvine, founded RUSK, a platform of hair products that ultimately sold to Conair for a hefty eight figures. Manguikian earned her chops as the CEO of the Belgrade Group, an empire of 25 salons, including Lord’s & Lady’s Hair Salons, James Joseph Salon, Corbu Spa and Green Tangerine Spa & Salon. “We are already thinking of phase two,” says Manguikian, who adds that her salons are visited by a half-million clients annually. “Louise and I have a natural research base we can tap to see what women want in their beauty routines.”
Photography by: Photography by Ned Jackson
