I poured my soul and my savings into making Merm happen. I had no idea how to start a business, how to navigate marketing, bookkeeping, or the technical side of Merm — but I knew that if I didn’t just go for it, Merm would never exist.

I mentioned before that I wanted to start a skincare company. This interest in skincare started when I was about 12 and began to get acne. I spent countless hours on YouTube learning everything there was to know about skin. However, I felt that the market was already saturated with skincare products, and that there were already so many great solutions to skincare issues that I didn’t feel like there was space for me to contribute something new.

This is what led me to create Merm. My whole life, I have been in a constant battle with my hair. It’s always frizzy and dry, and it grows like a snail. Over the past few years, I’ve been educating myself on how to properly care for it. My routine still isn’t perfect, but I started to notice a gap in the market: it’s hard to find sustainable haircare that actually works. Everything I tried in an effort to be sustainable just simply wasn’t as effective as my non-sustainable products. And I don’t know about you — but I’m not using a product if I hate it, whether it’s sustainable or not.

I created Merm to fill a gap in the market with a hair product that not only delivers results — but is also sustainable. I believe we shouldn’t have to sacrifice quality haircare in the name of sustainability, and that each of us can make small changes that help the Earth in big ways.