Hair by Sam McKnight

Hair by Sam McKnight is a British haircare brand created by the session hairstylist Sam McKnight. It launched in June 2017 at Liberty of London [8] and grew out of McKnight's decades of editorial, runway and red-carpet work, repackaged as styling and care products meant to be used at home. The line covers categories such as volume, texture, defrizz, repair, scalp care and shine, with the texture mist Cool Girl as its best-known product.

The brand remains active. Its journal published new posts through 2025, and its products continued to win industry awards into 2025; it is sold through Liberty, Space NK, Selfridges and other retailers.

Sam McKnight was born on 13 May 1955 in New Cumnock, Ayrshire, Scotland, into a working-class family, and worked as a window cleaner, van driver and trainee teacher before becoming a salon assistant [7]. He moved to London in the early 1970s, joined the salon Molton Brown, and had his first Vogue editorial shoot in 1977 before establishing himself as an independent session stylist [7]. In 1990 he created Princess Diana's short, slicked-back cut for a Vogue shoot and went on to style her hair for seven years [7]. Over his career he contributed to more than 190 Vogue cover shoots and worked with fashion houses including Chanel; Karl Lagerfeld described him as the "gifted one" [1].

McKnight has said he started the brand to put that experience into other people's hands. According to the company, he "wanted to make my styling expertise available to everyone so they had the power to transform their hair at home and style it without fear of getting it wrong." The brand frames hair as a means of self-expression, with McKnight stating that his role is "to empower women through hair."

The brand positions itself around easy-to-use products designed to make an immediate difference, summarised in McKnight's statement that he wants "to change the way we think and feel about hair." It describes its formulas as individually crafted by McKnight, lightweight, and tested at shows, on shoots and on the red carpet, and organises its approach around three stated pillars: Sam-Crafted Products, Fool-Proof Advice and Joyful Discovery [2]. The aesthetic it sells is the "Cool Girl" look — an undone, effortlessly tousled style that beauty editors had long associated with McKnight's work, and that the brand links to the long-running collaboration with Kate Moss.

The brand's signature product is the Cool Girl Barely There Texture Mist, one of its first launches in 2017. It has since anchored a wider "Cool Girl" volumising range that includes a volume foam, a cleansing shampoo and a volumising kit. Other products include Modern Hairspray Styling Mist with Heat Protection, Lazy Girl Dry Shampoo, Love Me Do Nourishing Shine Oil and Happy Endings Nourishing Balm. The company has referenced a proprietary technology it calls VOLUMINIS, and notes a signature scent developed with the perfumer Lyn Harris of Perfumer H, which it describes as evocative of an English garden after a rainstorm.

Sam McKnight has placed packaging at the centre of its environmental messaging under the tagline "Beautiful Hair. Beautiful Planet." Working with the materials company Shellworks, it introduced Vivomer packaging for two products — Pure Genius Scalp Restoring Oil and Dressed to Kill Define & Defrizz Crème — describing the material as a plant-derived biopolymer that is home-compostable and breaks down fully within a year [6]. The brand also says it has introduced biodegradable pipette droppers, which it characterises as among the first in the industry [8], and that it is moving its wet-spray bottles to fully recycled plastic, manufactured in the United Kingdom. Cartons are described as FSC-certified, with one product's packaging made from agricultural waste.

The line carries third-party ethical certifications. It is described as certified 100% vegan and is Leaping Bunny certified for being cruelty-free [2].

The Cool Girl texture mist has drawn the brand's strongest press. Women's Wear Daily named it one of the "Greatest Products of All Time," and Vogue dubbed it "Sam-in-a-can" for its ability to recreate McKnight's undone, voluminous look [5]. The product and its range have also collected annual beauty awards, among them Harper's Bazaar's Best Texture Spray, ELLE's Future of Beauty Awards for Modern Hairspray, and titles from Stylist, Marie Claire and Woman & Home across 2024 and 2025. The Sunday Times Style writer India Knight described McKnight as a "superstylist" whose "products are uniformly excellent."

Separately from the brand, McKnight was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2023 New Year Honours for services to the fashion and beauty industries [7]. In November 2016, Somerset House in London staged a retrospective of four decades of his work [7].

The brand is active. Its most recent documented journal post is dated 17 September 2025, and its products won awards through 2025. It sells directly and through retailers including Liberty, Space NK, Cult Beauty, Selfridges and Marks & Spencer, with distribution extending to international markets.