The startup Richualist aims to address a long-overlooked gap in care tools for hair with curly or dense strands through the Mint tool, which performs detangling, moisturizing, gel application, and styling in a single pass. The tool uses refillable product cartridges, along with technology that gently heats the product before application.
Company founder Dawn Myers says her hair-washing and styling routine used to take about an hour and 20 minutes, while Mint reduces the duration to between seven and 10 minutes. The company also claims that reducing hair tension during washing and styling can lower shedding and breakage by up to 70%, a figure the article attributes to the company, while the source provided no details about the methodology used to measure it.
A Tool Designed for Specific Needs
The idea for the product began about eight years ago, after Myers noticed that most available hair tools focused on straightening or changing the nature of curly hair, such as hair dryers, curling irons, and heated straightening tools, rather than making natural-hair care easier. After sketching an initial concept, she made a rudimentary prototype using materials purchased from Ace Hardware and CVS.
Richualist later partnered with Dow, a company specializing in materials science, after an early prototype caught its attention during a startup accelerator program. Dow provided engineering support and manufacturing guidance as the company began developing a unit specifically for caring for hair with curly strands.
Long Development and Difficult Funding
Product development took about five years and included conducting specialized research because basic data, such as the amount of product used by people with curly hair, was unavailable, according to Myers. The company also faced difficulty funding a hardware product targeting a problem the article described as specialized.
Myers financed the early stages by selling her home and liquidating her retirement account. The company then raised about $1.4 million to market the product and validate its product-market fit. She says she became one of the first 100 Black women to raise more than $1 million in venture capital funding.
What Changes in Practice?
Mint does not offer merely an additional cosmetic function; rather, it attempts to combine several stages of a care routine into one tool, targeting a hair type that, according to the founder’s experience, had not been a primary focus in the design of traditional care tools. Myers says the tool is also available in a travel size and that the company expanded to Ulta’s online store with the help of investor Emma Grede.
Richualist secured a deal with Mark Cuban and Emma Grede after Myers appeared on the television program Shark Tank; she applied to the program in 2023, and the episode aired in 2024. This year, the company was selected for TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield 200 list, giving it a place at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference.
The company says it is nearing an announcement that its inventory has sold out and plans to explore avenues for expansion. However, the source does not specify sales figures, production volume, or independent results testing the claim of a 70% reduction in breakage. It also does not clarify the geographic scope of availability or the tool’s price—points that will require additional verification before the product’s commercial reach can be assessed.