Found in Beauty is a column where experts and creative minds share insights and their genesis in the game. Ahead, we have Sacha Mitic, Founder and CEO of the Swedish haircare label, Sachajuan.
A 14-year-old Sacha Mitic walks into a salon. Sounds like the beginning of a joke, but instead, it’s the very instance that brought the brain of Sachajuan to where he is today. In 1978 Gothenburg, he felt a spark of curiosity. The staff of the salon gave him a chance, and soon enough, he became, in his own words, an accidental hairdresser. “By the time I was 19, I decided to really go for it,” he said as we sat down for the interview in his first-ever visit to Kuala Lumpur.
Like any great product, Sachajuan was created with a deep and practical understanding of hair. Pat McGrath’s namesake makeup brand took off because she had first-hand knowledge of what it takes to execute incredible beauty looks on the runway and in editorials. For Mitic, it is the years of being a session hairstylist that informed his decisions when creating the now-iconic haircare brand. That time included many unfortunate events where things just failed to come together. The styling products were not to be blamed, so he zoomed out to see the bigger picture: the hair itself.
“We don’t want to have products to control the hair; we want to control the hair, without products making it collapse onto itself. I see the brand as an extension of my work as a hairdresser, so it came quite naturally to create the toolbox that soon became the Sachajuan hair product,” he said.
As of press time, the brand has a total of seven ranges to fulfil everyone’s needs. The most celebrated one is its Ocean Mist range, where the goal is to give the tresses that effortless, bouncy body without weighing the hair down. But beyond the hot-selling items are formulations that protect from colour dilapidation, hair perfumes that shield the follicles from environmental aggressors, scalp treatments that address everything from the root, styling creams that prolong curls, and more—because that’s just how extensive hair needs can be.
At the core of everything they do at Sachajuan is the Ocean Silk Technology, where the brand harnesses the powers of algae bioscience to enhance all of its formulations. In our chat with Mitic, he cut through the technical shoptalk—”they don’t need to understand it at all to enjoy the products,” he posited—to get straight to the point. He likened it to a recipe, where everyone is serving the same dishes, and how it’s the minute details that can make for an outstanding experience. “It may be the same ingredients and the same approach, but it’s about how you balance the different ingredients, and your point of view in what you want to achieve, and not only that one ingredient that makes the difference—it’s actually how it works together with the rest of the formulation.”
This take tracks with his earlier thought that came up in the conversation. “I believe it is very important for the consumer to be able to use the product without fear,” Mitic emphasised. The fear he meant here is the discombobulation that many of us have dealt with when introduced to new and complex ideas. Even retinol requires a level of understanding to be administered correctly. With Sachajuan, there is no “one wrong move” to be made, because its founder has made sure that they are absolutely fool-proof.
As you can deduce at this point, he’s a pragmatic man. The term “flashy” is simply not a part of his vocabulary, and you can see it across the products. Packagings are simple, and they do the job of dispensing products well without all the extra fluff. “I definitely believe we’re building people’s bathrooms,” he admitted when poked about aesthetics. “But if the person only adheres to a certain kind of aesthetic that doesn’t align with Sachajuan, and maybe won’t buy our products, that’s okay. I understand that at first, people buy with the eyes, and then they experience the fragrance, which again, has to be aligned with their tastes. But in the end, it’s all about performance. Here, we try to be functional and understated, but still classy and modern.”
With over 20 years in the game, the founder has watched trends go in and out of style, and how they come in waves. “In general, it’s the same kind of approach to fashion and beauty. It’s always the younger wanting to set themselves apart from those older than them. This time, they’re starting to go with cleaner looks. And some people can be ahead in this trend, and some come later when it becomes more commercialised,” he started. “But with social media and its algorithm, everything is getting sped up, and people start to do the same thing. It’s boring in a way, because you lose that personality.”
“But healthy hair will always be in fashion. And you know why? Because it shows fertility. It’s something in here,” he said as he tapped the side of his temple. “If you look at a horse or a dog, the fur looks dull, and it sheds if it’s sick. So shiny hair is always a sign of something positive, and we try to support that.” This is all too true, because when was the last time any of us saw a commercial with nothing but lustrous, effortlessly tumbling hair? Never. “I always look at hair textures rather than looking at it as a generalised idea of what it is, and we strive to create functional products that support those textures and solve their problems. All of it is very personal.”
At the end of the day, for him, trends are just a look. Big and puffy or short and sleek, it doesn’t matter to him. “The greatest thing is when people discover their own look and feel absolutely confident in it, without being too worried about how they look. The hair, then, is just a part of them, and not the whole part,” Mitic remarked.
For those who have yet to explore the brand and all of its offerings, the founder nominated the Hair Repair Treatment. “Everybody needs to try it. It works with every hair type, thick or thin, without resulting in a greasy or sticky situation, he pointed out. “And then, depending on your texture, choose the right product for your shampoo.”
As for what’s next for the brand, you can keep a lookout for its Clarifying collection, which is targeted for those who are in the habit of using heavy styling products. “It’s a detox approach to hair, and it’s for when you need to clean the buildup in the hair,” said the founder.
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