Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Jill Biden is on the cover of Vogue, Marine Le Pen’s party wins big in the first round of French elections, and Ellie Austin, Fortune’s deputy editorial director for Most Powerful Women, catches up with the CEO of viral haircare brand Kitsch. Have a great Monday!
– You ‘do you. Cassandra Thurswell was 25 when she started hand-making hair ties in her Los Angeles apartment and selling them door to door. Raised in Wisconsin by a hairdresser single mom, Thurswell’s initial goal was to make “cute things” that the Midwestern women who she grew up around would enjoy and be able to afford.
“I was thinking about the young woman or girl and what she reached for every single day,” she recalls. “What’s something that I could do that no one else had put attention on? To me, that product was a basic hair elastic.”
Fourteen years later, what began for Thurswell as a passion for colorful accessories, has evolved into Kitsch, a hugely popular beauty brand with a hefty social media presence. She is founder and CEO, while her husband, Jeremy, serves as COO. With nearly 1 million Instagram followers, the company has become a go-to for online skincare and beauty obsessives thanks to the simple, pastel-colored aesthetic of its 250 products, as well as its low price points. Its shampoo, for example, retails at around $10. The global haircare market was estimated to be worth $99.5 billion in 2023, and making waves in such a competitive sector is no mean feat. Thurswell ascribes some of her success to her decision to bootstrap Kitsch. (She declines to reveal the company’s current revenue or valuation, but says she only had $30,000 in savings when she launched it in 2010).
“I couldn’t do any big marketing plays or influencer events,” she says. Instead, she focused on product quality and sustainability. Two of the brand’s most popular products are its solid bars of shampoo and conditioner, which are sold in packaging made from recycled paper. “We’re not the first ones to make solid shampoo and conditioner, but I’d like to think we’re the first ones to make true haircare in solid form with the right PH and super high quality salon ingredients,” Thurswell says.
The elimination of plastic bottles not only protects the planet; it also helps the company keep its costs low. “When you produce a bottle of shampoo, you’re paying for the bottle and the shipping of the bottle—most likely from overseas. That is so expensive and the amount of carbon dioxide involved in that whole lifecycle is so high,” she says.
Data shows that Kitsch is a “mutigenerational brand,” according to Thurswell. “We’re pretty evenly based from Gen Z all the way through to Gen X.” The Kitsch customer, she says, is “wildly impressive and charmingly flawed,” and the brand aims to help women celebrate their individuality. “Right now, in beauty, there’s a big trend in saying, ‘look this way or brush your eyebrows that way.’ We’re not telling you to be or do something different. Kitsch is a supportive brand. You do you.”
Ellie Austin
@Ellie_Austin_
The Broadsheet is Fortune’s newsletter for and about the world’s most powerful women. Today’s edition was curated by Joseph Abrams. Subscribe here.
ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
- Cover girl. First Lady Jill Biden is on the cover of Vogue’s August issue. In an editor’s note, Dr. Biden defended her husband as Democrats call for him to step down from the ticket after a disastrous debate performance. “Those 90 minutes” will not “define the four years he’s been president. We will continue to fight,” she said. Vogue
- Rally cry. National Rally, the party of France's far right leader Marine Le Pen, won handily on Sunday in the first round of voting for the country’s National Assembly. If voters give the National Rally an absolute majority after second round voting next week, the party can limit Prime Minister Emmanuel Macron’s powers. New York Times
- Ban is back. The Iowa Supreme Court upheld the state’s six-week abortion ban on Friday. The ban originally passed last year, but Planned Parenthood and other groups sued, aiming to keep abortion legal for up to 22 weeks. Washington Post
- Under the microscope. Slack CEO Denise Dressler told Fortune that the workplace communication company welcomes a new EU antitrust investigation into Microsoft, one of its biggest competitors. The investigation specifically references how Microsoft bundles its Teams and Office programs, which critics say give the company an illegal advantage. The investigation could result in a fine of up to $21 billion. Fortune
- Best in the business. A new report from Patino Associates found that 66% of chief communications officers at Fortune 500 companies are women. That’s compared to just 10.4% of Fortune 500 CEOs and 18.5% of CFOs. Axios
- Too woke, you are. Elon Musk is publicly attacking Kathleen Kennedy, the president of Lucasfilm and overseer of Star Wars content, for being “super bigoted against men.” The X and Tesla CEO called Kennedy “more deadly than the death star” because he believes the franchise has become too woke. Fortune
ON MY RADAR
How Glossier’s perfume saved it from the millennial dustbin Business Insider
Women like me are missing out on one of the best jobs available today as careers in private equity have a 50% chance of going awry Fortune
Kamala Harris could win this election. Let her New York Times
PARTING WORDS
“I feel so fulfilled, and I feel so passionate about everything I do. And (that all) really just comes from gratitude.”
— Track and field star Gabby Thomas, who balances Olympic training with a volunteer position at a Texas health clinic
