JVN Hair

JVN Hair is a United States haircare brand launched on 31 August 2021 as a collaboration between the biotechnology company Amyris and the hairstylist and television personality Jonathan Van Ness [5]. The line is built around clean, gender-neutral formulas organised by hair goal rather than hair type, and it centres on a single hero ingredient, Hemisqualane, a sugarcane-derived alternative to silicone.

After Amyris filed for bankruptcy, JVN Hair changed hands in 2024: Windsong Global bought it at auction for US$1.25 million and placed it under a newly created holding company, Belle Brands [7]. The brand remains active and continues to sell through Sephora, but it now operates under different ownership than at launch.

JVN Hair was created by Jonathan Van Ness, who is best known as the grooming expert on the Netflix series Queer Eye, which began in 2018 [8]. Before television, Van Ness trained at the Aveda Institute in Minneapolis and worked as a hairstylist in Arizona, Los Angeles and New York. The brand also identifies him as an Emmy-nominated personality, a New York Times best-selling author and a podcaster.

The product side of the venture came from Amyris, a US biotechnology company that developed the formulas and supplied the ingredient at the heart of the range. According to the launch announcement, the line debuted online at JVNhair.com and Sephora.com on 31 August 2021, with selected Sephora stores following on 17 September. It arrived with four collections — Nurture for added moisture, Undamage for stressed or over-treated hair, Embody for fine hair, and Complete for styling.

JVN Hair launched as an Amyris brand, with Van Ness as the founder and public face but without an ownership stake in the business. That structure ended when Amyris entered bankruptcy and liquidated its assets. In 2024, Windsong Global acquired JVN Hair at auction for US$1.25 million and folded it into a new holding company called Belle Brands, which also took on the baby-care brand Pipette [7]. Teresa Lo serves as president of Belle Brands and oversees both labels [7].

The change also altered Van Ness's position. In interviews around the acquisition, he said he had held no equity in JVN Hair previously and described gaining "a seat at the table when it comes to incredibly important back-end business decisions" for the first time under the new owners [6]. The brand has said its formulas were kept unchanged through the transition.

JVN Hair positions itself as inclusive, gender-neutral clean haircare. Its products are organised around hair goals such as moisture, strength, smoothness and volume rather than around defined hair types, an approach the company frames with the line that the brand "sees all beauty, serves all beauty, and honors the uniqueness in each of us." The stated mission is "Health For Hair, Health For The Planet."

Editorial coverage has placed the brand within the wave of celebrity-founded clean-beauty labels of the early 2020s, and within gender-inclusive marketing aimed at a broad audience; a Refinery29 review described the range as offering "something for all hair-having folx" [9]. Prices for the line have been reported in roughly the high-teens to high-twenties in US dollars, which reviewers positioned as a step above typical drugstore haircare while remaining below most prestige labels [9].

The formulas are built around Hemisqualane, an ingredient invented by Amyris and produced through bio-fermentation from sustainably grown Brazilian sugarcane [5]. The company markets it as a lightweight alternative to silicone that can penetrate the hair shaft, and describes it as its "one-ingredient revolution." JVN Hair states that, in clinical studies, Hemisqualane showed an instant reduction in frizz and improved hair health over time, and refers to it as a patented, award-winning ingredient without naming the patent holder or the awards.

Across editorial reviews, the Complete Air Dry Cream is consistently named the brand's standout product; a CNN Underscored review identified it as the line's number-one bestseller [10]. Other products the brand highlights include the Instant Recovery Serum, the Pre-Wash Scalp Oil, the Nurture Hydrating Shampoo and Conditioner, and the Complete Blowout Styling Milk.

Sustainability is a central part of the brand's stated identity, summarised in its "Health For Hair, Health For The Planet" mission. According to JVN Hair, all products are formulated with vegan ingredients and the line is cruelty-free, silicone-free and sulfate-free. The company says its bottles are made of aluminium and glass and are "infinitely recyclable," that its paper packaging is FSC-certified and printed with soy-based ink, and that it favours ocean over air freight to lower emissions. At launch, the brand stated a commitment to become "100% plastic-free by 2025" [5]. It also says it donates one percent of net sales of its Pre-Wash Scalp Oil to organisations working on environmental protection.

JVN Hair remains an operating brand. Following the 2024 acquisition it is owned by Windsong Global and run under the Belle Brands holding company, with Van Ness retaining a creative role and, for the first time, an equity stake [7]. The line continues to be sold as a Sephora-exclusive brand alongside its own website, and the company has said it maintains a presence in select salons. As of the most recent review of its website, the brand was active under this ownership structure.

The brand's main public difficulty stemmed from its parent rather than from its products. When Amyris filed for bankruptcy, JVN Hair was sold at auction for US$1.25 million — a figure trade coverage framed as a steep markdown from its high-profile 2021 launch, and as a cautionary example for partnerships between celebrities and biotechnology companies [7]. The coverage did not attribute wrongdoing to JVN Hair or to Van Ness.