Decibel

Decibel is an American haircare brand built around a single concern: hair volume. It was founded by the hairdresser Jonelle Sampson, and several trade and consumer publications name her husband, Michael Sampson, as co-founder [9][13]. The range is deliberately small, consisting of a thickening shampoo, a conditioner, an at-home treatment and a salon-only service, all built on an ingredient blend the company calls the 140dB Complex. The name, and much of the way the brand talks about itself, is taken from music.

Decibel is a young company and is active. It sells in the United States through its own online store and, in July 2026, launched in the United Kingdom, where the professional distributor Sweet Squared added it to its portfolio. The company has not publicly stated a founding year.

On the brand's website, Jonelle Sampson is introduced as a third-generation hairdresser with more than two decades of experience and clients in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and Austin. BeautyNewsDaily and Darling Magazine both describe her as an award-winning hairdresser. In her own telling, the idea came from the chair: the request she heard most often was for more volume and thicker-looking hair, whatever the client's hair type or age. She has said that almost 90 per cent of her clients and friends asked how to get more volume, that they disliked the build-up left by other products, and that they wanted an in-salon service that would deliver it. No such service existed, she says, so she set out to create one.

The name came before the brand. According to the company's account, Sampson had registered several names for a planned new salon, one of them Decibel, chosen because of her love of music. She then lost both the salon space and her home town in the Palisades fires. A move to Austin followed, and with it a change of plan: the salon became a haircare brand [2]. The company does not give dates for these events.

The technical side began with hair colour. BeautyNewsDaily reports that the idea for the complex came from colour delivery systems, which are designed to carry dye deep into the hair shaft, and that Sampson developed the formula together with her chemist [12].

Accounts of who founded the company differ in emphasis. The brand's own about page presents Jonelle, signed with her first name only, as "our founder" and does not mention Michael Sampson [2]. Creative HEAD describes Decibel as co-founded in the US by Jonelle and Michael Sampson, and Women Talking calls the pair a husband-and-wife founding team [9][13]. BeautyNewsDaily takes a middle position: it says Jonelle Sampson founded the brand and runs it alongside her husband, whom it describes as an industry veteran [12]. The company's homepage refers more broadly to "our stylist founder" and an operating team with backgrounds in hair and product development, and says the founding team has more than half a century of combined experience.

The early history is told without dates. After the pivot from salon to brand in Austin, Decibel launched in the United States with a direct-to-consumer web store and a separate sign-up route for salon professionals.

The first widely reported milestone came in July 2026, when the brand arrived in the United Kingdom. BeautyNewsDaily reported the launch on 8 July, noting that the range was available through a UK web store alongside the existing US one. A week later, Creative HEAD covered a launch event in Camden, London, at which Sweet Squared took the brand into its portfolio [9]. The trade magazine described a room with records on the walls, a DJ at the decks and live styling demonstrations, a setting that matched the brand's music theme. Creative HEAD reported the range as available exclusively through Sweet Squared, while consumer coverage pointed readers to the brand's own UK store; the two describe the professional and retail sides of the same launch.

The brand's terms of service name DecibelHair LLC as the owner of its trademarks and website content [7]. No corporate parent, outside investor or acquisition has been publicly documented. In the United Kingdom, the brand is distributed to salons by Sweet Squared.

Decibel describes itself as "high performance haircare dedicated to volume", and its stated mission is to blend "science, sound and self-expression". The music theme is more than a name. The website copy speaks of hair "on mute" and of turning up the volume, and the company's pages play a Decibel track that it credits to George Pettus, whom it describes as Grammy-nominated and Emmy-winning. The homepage lists Jonelle Sampson as founder, hairdresser and music producer, and features a group of stylists alongside her, among them Matt Swinney, presented as a four-time NAHA winner.

The range is kept small on purpose. The company says it does not believe in too many products and sums up its approach as three products and three steps, with results in five minutes. Its argument against the wider volume category is that most volumising products leave build-up, dull hair colour and do not last. BeautyNewsDaily framed the brand the same way, contrasting it with the long-standing reliance on heavy polymers that coat the outside of the hair. Decibel says its own technology works from the inside of the strand outwards.

The intended customer is someone whose hair has become finer or flatter over time. Women Talking described the range as suited to anyone whose hair has gradually lost body through age, colouring or simply nature.

Salons are a central channel. The brand runs a separate professional site that requires validated credentials, and its first product was conceived as a service performed at the basin. It also publishes a "Volume Blog" with articles on fine and flat hair, the difference between hair breakage and hair loss, and the role of nutrition in hair density.

All four products are built on the 140dB Complex, which the company describes as a proprietary blend of specific acids and peptides. According to Decibel, the complex works inside each strand to thicken the cortex, the inner part of the hair fibre, on a semi-permanent basis, rather than wrapping around the hair. The brand calls the result "Hair Hypertrophy".

The company's performance claims are specific. It says the formula is progressive, working better with each use without build-up, and that it is colour safe, shortens drying time, detangles and protects. Its headline figure is an increase in hair thickness and volume of up to 74 per cent, with results lasting more than 20 washes. On the brand's own about page, the 74 per cent figure is attributed to the ingredients in the complex rather than to a named test of the finished product, and no study design or sample size is published [2]. Darling Magazine repeated the figure as the brand's claim [11].

The products form a salon-and-home system:

- Hypertrophy Pro is the salon-only treatment, applied at the basin in about five minutes. The company calls it the world's first professional thickening service; Creative HEAD and Darling Magazine both reported that description as the brand's own. - Hypertrophy Thickening and Volumizing Treatment is the at-home version and the brand's lead retail product. BeautyNewsDaily describes it as a weekly five-minute treatment with the highest concentration of the complex in the retail range, suitable for extensions and for colour-treated and keratin-treated hair. - Thickening Shampoo and Thickening Conditioner contain the same complex in a lower concentration, according to the company's FAQ.

Coverage of the UK launch counted the range differently. BeautyNewsDaily described a three-product lineup for home use, while Darling Magazine listed four products, including the salon-size Hypertrophy Pro. The products share a signature fragrance with notes of jasmine, saffron, amberwood, cedar and fir resin, which BeautyNewsDaily compared to the perfume Baccarat Rouge 540; the company's FAQ names the same perfume as its inspiration.

On ingredients and packaging, Decibel says its products are vegan and sulfate-free, and that its packaging contains at least 25 per cent post-consumer recycled material. The company also states that it is Leaping Bunny certified, a cruelty-free standard [1].

No industry awards for the brand itself are documented. Press coverage to date is concentrated around the UK launch in July 2026 and comes from trade and consumer beauty outlets: Creative HEAD, Darling Magazine, BeautyNewsDaily and Women Talking. The Women Talking writer, who attended the launch, reviewed the at-home trio after a single use, called it very much early days and said she was pleasantly surprised.

Decibel is active. Its US and UK web stores are operating, and its most recent widely reported activity is the UK launch event in Camden in July 2026. The company has not published a founding year or a headquarters address; the founder's account places the start of the brand in Austin.