Jennifer Lawrence Hopes You Won’t Hate Her Haircare Brand

أحمد الرفاعيمنذ ساعة واحدةآخر تحديث: 28 أكتوبر، 2026

0 29 14 دقيقة قراءة

EMILY DAWN LONG Dress, at emilydawnlong.com.
Photo: Bryce Anderson

Jennifer Lawrence has been here before. At this exact same sort of restaurant, the kind where celebrities discreetly mingle (this time, Gemma, the Italian trattoria attached to the Bowery Hotel), in a booth that gives her some privacy but not so much that her publicist and assistant can’t keep a watchful eye and ear from a table nearby. There’s always a stranger sitting across from her scribbling down notes on what she orders (a cappuccino and avocado toast with a soft-boiled egg) and what she’s wearing (an oversize bright-red sweater and a small beaded turquoise necklace). This is her cue to rehash talking points about her chemistry with a co-star or reverence for a director.

DIOR Coat, at dior.com. NIKOS KOULIS Earrings, at nikoskoulis.com.
Photo: Bryce Anderson

But when we meet for breakfast in early October, something about the familiar scene is different; she’s slightly outside her comfort zone. “I’m in this interesting transition,” she says. “For the last three years, I have been in this kind of delusional bubble where I can’t let doubt in. Now I’m experiencing doubt.” Lawrence, whose blonde hair is wavy from sleeping in loose braids last night, says any movie release comes with nerves, which she can normally soothe by bingeing the latest season of Real Housewives. This morning, though, she’s not here to talk about developing a Miss Piggy feature, working on a rom-com, or shooting a sci-fi thriller next spring. Instead, for the first time in her 20-year career, the 36-year-old is debuting a project you won’t find in theaters or on Netflix. And she’s still figuring out how to talk about it. “I have to pretend I’ve made the greatest thing on earth,” she says, her hands fiddling with the salt and pepper shakers. “Otherwise it gets too scary. It’s a form of forced manifestation.”

That thing arrives on October 27, when Lawrence will officially join the oversaturated world of celebrity brands by launching Mes, a “biodesigned haircare” company that is selling three products: a repair mask, a restyling serum, and a volumizing mist. She’s partnered with an MIT-trained scientist to develop new formulas they claim will change your hair in ways nothing else on the market can. That sounds great and all, but “what if nobody gets it?” she asks. “What if everybody hates it?”

CDLM Coat and Dress, at cdlm.us. WOLFORD Tights, at wolford.com. JUDE Shoes, at thejude.com.
Photo: Bryce Anderson

Lawrence might seem like the type of actor who would roll her eyes at the celebrity–to–beauty brand pipeline. She has an Oscar and a production company and just shot a Martin Scorsese movie alongside Leonardo DiCaprio. Why spend time shilling a volume mist? Her answer doesn’t involve cracking jokes about girlbosses making #OOTD videos, the brand of self-deprecating humor she used as armor earlier in her career. Instead, she’s taking it very seriously, speaking about Mes as a natural extension of her art. “There is an undeniable energetic thing that happens when you’re creating things, whether it’s a movie or a product,” she says, twisting up her hair into a bun. “I got that same electric buzz I get from building a character. It’s like, Well, I have to follow this because it’s the same animal.” Lawrence has made peace with the humiliation inherent in being a creative person forced to talk about their work and doesn’t need to turn herself into the punch line. The baby-faced 22-year-old who laughed off tripping on the stairs at the Academy Awards is now more than a decade older and a mother of two. I watch her arrange her delicate features into a thoughtful expression while telling me how creatively satisfying it felt to develop a brand. I know she’s a good actor, one of the best, but I believed her.

CATALOGUE Dress, at catalogue.nyc.
Photo: Bryce Anderson

Lawrence has always been a “hair girl.” “I feel like if my hair looks okay, then nobody’s gonna notice anything else about my face, clothes, or body,” she says. “I also can find myself using it to hide.” As a child, her thick curls would puff up in the Kentucky humidity, and she slept in braids to control the “floof.” In her teenage years, she ceded control to stylists, who did whatever they needed to get her camera-ready. “When you are a new and upcoming actress, you can’t be like, ‘Don’t put that on my hair,’’’ she says. “You sit in the chair and you say ‘Thank you’ and you shut your mouth.” Her strands would smoke and sizzle when the hair spray hit the straightening iron; her hair was dyed four different colors in one day for an X-Men screen test. After shooting the second Hunger Games film in 2013, her hair was so fried that she chopped it off into a pixie cut, a style she thought at the time “looked dope.”

Soon, Lawrence had bought every new product on the market in a desperate search for anything that would style her hair without hot tools. She even met with scientists about developing new products, but she struggled to find a like-minded collaborator. That is until 2023, when she watched a TED Talk by Jasmina Aganovic, a chemical biological engineer with a shiny brown bob and a beauty company who spoke about creating products that would fundamentally change the makeup of hair rather than just coating it in products — the industry’s current approach. Lawrence got goosebumps and emailed Aganovic to set up a meeting in the fall, just as the actors’ strike was ending. “It just seemed like a new way of going about things,” she said. “This is what I’ve been waiting for.”

SCHIAPARELLI HAUTE COUTURE Jacket, Pants, and Belt, at schiaparelli.com.
Photo: Bryce Anderson

Aganovic was initially less enthusiastic about the partnership. She had already founded a company, Arcaea, that uses DNA sequencing and skin microbiology to make, among other things, perfumes that reimagine extinct flowers or the smell of clouds. And while she wasn’t blind to the attention Lawrence could shine on her life’s work, she worried it could also be a distraction. “One of my biggest fears is having my work be misinterpreted,” she says. “Jen came across as credible and curious, but you never know how much she had actually looked into the company.” After a Zoom call, Lawrence set out to prove she wouldn’t be the kind of business partner with “25 assistants rescheduling something.” Within a few weeks, she flew to Aganovic’s Boston lab, showed up without an entourage, and smelled the smelliest bacteria in the fridge. Aganovic was impressed. “Jen literally said, ‘If you want to do this in five years, I’ll still be here,’” Aganovic remembers. “And I think that took the pressure off. I was like, Oh wow, she’s really serious.”

By fall 2024, Aganovic’s team of scientists was working on formulas that would make hair healthier while cutting down on styling time, damage, and shampooing. Lawrence had very specific ideas for the products, like a hair mask that would go on dry hair (and that could double as a “wet look”), a serum that got rid of her “floofs” without leaving residue, and a volumizing spray that wasn’t crunchy and improved her scalp. To execute her vision, Aganovic’s scientists had to become experts in lipids, proteins, and the scalp’s microbiome and experiment with different techniques, including developing a proprietary ingredient to promote a balanced, less oily scalp. “Hair masks are not usually applied to dry hair,” says Aganovic, “which is why it’s very expensive to produce them this way, without water.” (A 150-milliliter bottle costs $52.) Lawrence’s head became the guinea pig. She tried the products on her naturally curly hair, which she says makes her look like Isaac Newton. She tested the serum while doing promo for Die My Love and used the volumizing mist on the set of What Happens at Night, the Scorsese film she shot earlier this year. Her dedication was total, and she sent the serum back to the lab almost 150 times. At one point, she started to smell like fish after leaving on an unscented version of the mask for four days. “My husband was like, ‘If you don’t wash your hair, you have to get a hotel room,’” she said. Lawrence held firm.

MAISON MARGIELA Top and Skirt, at maisonmargiela.com.
Photo: Bryce Anderson

When she wasn’t filming, she spent hours on weekly calls about the business and focused on developing the look of Mes’ logo and bottles. “I knew I couldn’t miss a Zoom and that I’d need to look over every single letter on the website,” she says. Sometimes it was hard to juggle everything. During one call, Lawrence tells me she was bouncing on a yoga ball at nine months pregnant when it occurred to her she was only in a bra. “I just turned my camera off and said, ‘I’m so sorry. I realized that I’m not wearing a shirt,’” she says, “And then everybody pretended like they hadn’t noticed.” But she wanted to stay in the weeds of the business. Lawrence took nose-training classes to help develop Mes’ scent; she sent product samples to everyone in her group chat and asked them for their feedback on fonts. She got so involved in the design that she had a colleague fly out to the New England beach town where she was vacationing so she could hold the 3-D-printed models in her hands. “I wanted them to be pretty,” she says of the bottles, which look like modernist mini-vases. “Bathroom products are always out, and it’s like, Why is this ugly?”

Lawrence trusts her eye, she assures me during our post-breakfast tour of the artist Robert Rauschenberg’s former Noho studio, a place she wanted to visit because it’s up for sale and could soon be turned into luxury condos. “I am good at telling when something’s going to be hot,” she says, now wearing a black baseball cap from her husband’s art business, American Pictures. After looking at a small exhibition of work by the mid-20th-century multimedia icon — “he’s kind of hot,” she says under her breath as she stands in front of a photo of Rauschenberg smoking — we sit in a room with sun pouring in through arched windows while Lawrence tells me about the vibe she’s trying to create. Mes, which is pronounced Mess (the latter was already trademarked), is meant to capture the kind of girl (gender neutral) who leaves the house with dewy skin and a rumpled-in-a-chic-way button-down shirt. “The moment something was fussy, it was like ‘no,’” she says. “Avoiding pretentious words and pretentious font is big. Our girl is not that. But she appreciates beauty.” Lawrence’s personal ethos is also looking good with minimal effort, despite the fact that she’s had a boob job and one day plans to get a face-lift. “I want to be a sexy mom,” she says. “At drop-off, I want to look like a woman that has her shit together even when I’ve just woken up and don’t have my shit together.”

CELINE Coat, Pants, and Shoes, at celine.com. SOPHIE BUHAI Earrings, at sophiebuhai.com.
Photo: Bryce Anderson

But don’t expect to see GRWM videos in her bathroom before taking her toddler to school. She had resisted creating an Instagram account for her entire career — she did, however, make a Finsta to share memes with her friends — in hopes of keeping a few shreds of life private. But Lawrence knew Instagram was a necessity for any founder in 2026 and a few months ago met with a social-media expert, who explained that Lawrence’s strategy didn’t need to involve constantly pumping out content or filming her home life. Instead, since officially joining the platform in September, she’s only posted to the grid three times — “If anyone says anything negative, I will quit,” she deadpanned in her first video — and already has more than 8 million followers. She plans to do minimal promo for Mes, including product tutorials she might film in a “public or hotel bathroom” to keep her own sink offline.

It’s a tough time to jump on the celebrity-beauty-brand bandwagon. Fans tend to view these companies cynically, as cringe cash grabs rather than genuine passion projects. And the bar for success is high: The products have to be good on their own merits, and the celebrity selling them has to make sense. People want Kylie Jenner’s lips and Hailey Bieber’s skin, but on Reddit threads speculating about Mes, commenters are already questioning whether Lawrence’s hair is a standout feature. When I ask Lawrence if she feels pressure to have aspirational hair, she says, “That didn’t even occur to me,” with a look of panic. “Is that something people think about?” In her fortress of positivity, she hasn’t dwelled on the criticisms that could be coming her way and seems genuinely caught off guard when I bring them up. Is she concerned a highbrow beauty product is at odds with the every-woman persona fans love? “I think about how excited people will be to have something so sculptural and beautiful!” she says. “My little bubble is about to be popped.”

CARVEN Dress, at carven.com.
Photo: Bryce Anderson

While beauty brands have turned rich celebrities like Rihanna and Selena Gomez into filthy rich business moguls, Lawrence scoffs at the idea that Mes was conceived as a source of financial stability amid Hollywood’s decline. “A smarter exit plan would be signing up for a big franchise,” she says. “Starting a new company to get rich feels like jumping off a cruise ship to land on a door.” And anyway, worrying about the bottom line is not her strong suit. When talking about the look and feel of Mes, she adopts the self-seriousness of any artist talking about their craft. But when it comes to the more technical sides of the business, Lawrence falls back on her familiar brand of self-mockery. “If you put a gun to my head and were like, ‘What are the numbers we would need to reach in order for Mes to be a success?’ I would have no clue,” she says. “Numbers don’t stick in here. I’m dumb but cute!” When I ask if the company has investors, she whispers “I don’t know” and redirects me to her co-founder. (Aganovic says her original company, Arcaea, which has raised $78 million, is funding Mes.)

But the shtick isn’t working so well this time — which is a good thing. It felt charmingly authentic when, in 2012, the Kentucky-born ingénue told David Letterman, “I hate myself. Don’t go see the movie. I’m a troll.” But Lawrence is in a much different phase of life. She’s a mother married to a prominent art dealer and serves as the face of Dior. In Hollywood, she calls the shots, green-lighting movies with her own production company and fielding requests from the most in-demand directors while slamming the industry’s pay gap. Even if she can’t balance a spreadsheet, it’s hard to believe she’s a buffoon in the boardroom. “It’s funny that she describes herself as the creative needing the business counterpart,” says Justine Ciarrocchi, who runs a production company with Lawrence and is her friend of almost 20 years. “I think she has an incredible business intuition, and she’s fearless when she is sure of something.” Molly Howard, the CEO of La Ligne — a brand whose coveted wide-legged pants are a staple of Lawrence’s “momboy” aesthetic — says her friend already has the most important quality in a successful founder: the willingness to pore over the most boring details of the business, from learning about EBITA to testing a bottle’s seal. “The ambition is that this becomes a Fenty Beauty of hair care,” Howard says. “I really think this could be a Rhode.” Lawrence actually has an even more audacious North Star in mind, one she’s too embarrassed to name. “If I told you, you would be like ‘Hahaha,’” she says. “It is so big and so huge that I’m aware Mes will never get there.” I beg her a few more times, but all she’ll say is that the aspirational brand is not beauty-related. “If I was Taylor Swift, the people on Twitter would figure it out.”

PHOEBE PHILO Jacket, Shirt, Pants, and Belt, at phoebephilo.com. JESSICA MCCORMACK Necklace, at jessicamccormack.com.
Photo: Bryce Anderson

Towards the end of October, I visit Lawrence at her office in Tribeca, a Federal-style townhouse with exposed brick and barnwood panels. There’s incense burning on the long wooden coffee table, and as she curls up on a rust-colored couch, asking me at one point if I’m bothered by her bare feet, Lawrence claims to be feeling more calm than when we first met. “I’m back to being utterly and completely positive,” she says, wearing a sequined brown wool cardigan and a long black skirt. “I can always fall back on the product. It’s just kind of like, Well, these are obviously really good.” If she’s stressed about anything today, it’s a recent haircut that left her with uneven bangs, which she’s repeatedly tried to fix. “No matter what I do, it flicks out,” she says, pointing to a strand on the left side of her head. “And I went into a meeting today as a hair authority.” Come to think of it, maybe she is a little nervous, mostly about the idea that people won’t have enough patience to stick with the products. “If you make a texturizing spray, everybody knows what to expect,” she says. “These are brand-new products. So my fear is somebody will get a first impression without actually taking the time to figure out how it works with their hair.” She’s already dealt with a few emergencies, like the mask leaking during the ship test or the cap on the restyling serum squeaking. (“This isn’t luxury,” she remembers saying. “It sounds like I’m stepping on mice.”)

Earlier that day, the Mes landing page went live, featuring a video of Lawrence’s blonde waves bouncing as she dances in a red cardigan. She immediately texted her group chat asking for compliments, which includes Howard of La Ligne, Tracy Dubb of Isla Beauty, and two women she won’t name because they are “very private.” On October 27, the full website will roll out, and if all goes well, Mes bottles will start filling people’s bathroom cabinets.

In a material sense, whether Mes is a hit or not won’t have a big effect on Lawrence’s life. She’s already rich, and Paul Thomas Anderson probably wouldn’t blacklist an actor whose hair mask doesn’t sell. For Lawrence, the stakes are more personal. She has the antsy intensity of someone who’s desperate for people to join in their obsession rather than mock it, like a friend who’s become a javaphile and wants you to adopt a new coffee-brewing technique. “Tell me about your experience because the products take time,” she says, fixing me with an intense stare. “I can answer questions.” She’s itching to nerd out about the eccentricities of her creations, excited for people to log on to the website and see the microscopic images of how these products affect the scalp. As she’d told me during breakfast, “I’m nervous about someone putting on the restyling serum and being like, Oh my God, this went on really oily, without knowing that in 15 minutes, it’ll all dry.”

Toward the end of our talk, she catches her foot bouncing and says, “I think the nerves are in my body. I work really hard to keep my brain disciplined.” At some point, Lawrence knows someone from the Mes team will call and let her know if the sales numbers are good or bad. But the real risk is a bruised ego, the idea that people won’t like — or simply don’t care — about a product she’s devoted years of her life to perfecting. “I imagine it’s going to be like when a movie comes out, where there has to be this release of tension,” she says. “I’ll try and get Zen with it. But I’ll probably just have wine for breakfast.”

KALLMEYER Top, Skirt, and Scarf, at kallmeyer.nyc. JUDE Shoes, at thejude.com.
Photo: Bryce Anderson