Green Heads

Green Heads is a Swedish haircare company based in Stockholm, founded in 2016 [2]. It develops and sells sustainability-focused hair products built around active natural ingredients, and runs salon and professional arms alongside its retail range. The company's tagline is "Hair care with a mission," and its stated aim is to make environmentally conscious haircare effective enough to compete with conventional products.

The brand grew out of a long friendship between its two founders, both named Maria, and a shared frustration with how "eco" hair products were marketed. It remains an active, Sweden-focused business, with three certified salons in Stockholm, an online shop, and a separate professional division for hairdressers and resellers.

Green Heads was founded by Maria Cruseman and Maria Hellström, who first met in 1991 as 16-year-old students on a hairdressing program [2]. Their paths later diverged: Cruseman developed allergies to salon chemicals and left the trade to work as a photographer and creative director, while Hellström continued as a hairdresser in Sweden and the United States.

After concluding that many products sold as eco-friendly were not as clean as their marketing suggested, Hellström adopted the Danish "Grön Salong" (Green Salon) certification and opened the first Green Heads salon in the Birkastan district of Stockholm. The two reconnected and formally began collaborating in 2016, the year the company dates its founding to [2].

Green Heads is primarily a haircare brand, with a range spanning shampoo, conditioner, treatments, leave-in products, hair oils and styling products. According to the company, its formulas draw on active, botanically derived ingredients such as broccoli seed oil, rice protein, aloe vera, rosemary, nettle, argan oil and baobab oil. The professional division groups the output into three series: a care and styling line, a plant-based colour line, and a lightening range.

Two products have drawn particular editorial attention. Alg in Treatment, a mask built around algae and amino acids, was featured by Vogue Scandinavia in a piece on algae hair treatments. Plants In Colour, a plant-based hair colour line for home use, launched in 2022 and was presented as a way to colour hair without hydrogen peroxide [5]. A later styling product, Heat Defence, is positioned as a combined heat protectant and shine product.

The company frames its purpose around what it calls green haircare. Its stated mission is to "inspire and encourage everyone to choose green hair care," and it describes a vision in which all haircare is green haircare, pairing toxin-free and vegan ingredients with results-focused performance. Green Heads lists quality, inclusion and creativity among its core values, alongside a stated ambition to push the wider industry toward sustainability.

Central to its positioning is the Grön Salong certification, a Danish standard that, the brand says, excludes allergens, hormone disruptors and environmentally harmful substances [2]. On a dedicated page about the substances it avoids, Green Heads lists formaldehyde-releasing preservatives, parabens, microplastics, phthalates, certain silicones, and the dye compounds PPD and PTD, among others. The company notes that roughly ten percent of Sweden's population has some form of contact allergy as part of the rationale for excluding allergenic dyes.

The brand's products are described as vegan and cruelty-free, the latter framed as PETA certification [6]. Sulfate-free, silicone-free and fragrance-free options are also offered across the range.

Green Heads operates through several channels. It runs three certified salons in Stockholm — in Södermalm, Östermalm and Vasastan — and sells through an online shop that also carries curated products from other professional green brands [6]. A separate professional arm, Green Heads Pro, supplies hairdressers and resellers and offers training through "Green Heads Academy," with courses based in Stockholm. By its own description, the company is one of the larger green haircare players in Sweden.

Green Heads has been recognised in the Beauty Oscar awards run by the beauty editorial team at Aftonbladet (Skönhetsredaktörerna). In 2022 its Alg in Treatment mask won the prize for best treatment mask (Årets bästa inpackning) [5], and in 2026 Heat Defence won in the heat protection category [5]. The brand has also appeared in Swedish and Nordic press including Skönhetsredaktörerna, Scandinavian MIND and Vogue Scandinavia, and co-founder Maria Hellström has been interviewed on organic hair coloring and what she has described as responsible innovation.

Green Heads is an active brand. Its coverage and product awards run continuously from editorial features in 2019 through to a Beauty Oscar award reported in May 2026 [5]. Its distribution, salons and recognition remain centered on Sweden.