NOIR Stockholm

NOIR Stockholm is a Swedish professional hair care brand based in Stockholm. It grew out of a hair salon that creative director Hans Nilsson opened in 2007 with co-founder Ellen Ericsson [2]; the company added a retail product line under the NOIR name several years later. The range is sold mainly through professional salons and made in Sweden, and the company positions it around vegan, cruelty-free formulas and Scandinavian design.

The brand operates across two web domains and two salon locations, in Stockholm and Gothenburg [8]. It remains active, with a current product catalogue and an online store as of 2026 [9].

The salon was established in 2007 in central Stockholm. Its co-founder and creative director, Hans Nilsson, is described by the company as an internationally established editorial and celebrity hairstylist whose work appears in fashion shows and concerts; the brand states that his styling has featured in Vogue, Elle and iD, though this refers to Nilsson's editorial work rather than independent coverage of the brand [8]. His co-founder is named Ellen Ericsson on the product company's about page [2], while the salon site spells the name Ellen Eriksson [7]; both spellings appear across the brand's own sources.

The two businesses are kept somewhat distinct online. The salon operates under the domain noirsthlm.com, while the product brand, styled "NOIR Stockholm Hair Care Products," sits at noirstockholm.com.

According to its founder biography, NOIR launched a dedicated hair care line in 2015, separate from the 2007 salon [8]. The exact launch year is not entirely settled: the Swedish beauty blog Skönhetsredaktörerna, writing in April 2017, said the brand had launched "last year," which would place it in 2016 [11]. The company's own account gives 2015.

In 2017 the brand was named among the top winners at the Swedish Beauty & Cosmetics Awards, during the awards' tenth-anniversary ceremony at Stockholm City Hall [11]. The same year it became available in the Netherlands, where it was reviewed by Dutch outlets including Beautybyfrieda and Wellnessspots [12]. The founder biography also lists distribution across Sweden, Norway, Finland, the Netherlands and France, although this wider reach is not independently confirmed.

NOIR frames its work around the meeting point of fashion and hair. Its stated mission is "to shape, style and tell stories with hair" and "to bring fashion and hair closer together." The founders describe an approach that pairs natural raw materials with modern formulas and declines, in Nilsson's words, to "compromise on either caring properties or functionality." The company lists function, quality, sustainability, scent and design as the line's core components.

Reviewers have placed the brand within a Scandinavian-minimalist aesthetic, and one Dutch review reported that it targets Dutch and Scandinavian customers who, in the brand's framing, "go for easy and effortless hair, but always in a stylish way" [12].

The range covers shampoos, conditioners and treatments; styling products such as sprays, creams, pastes and dry shampoos; and a small hand-care line of fragranced sanitizers. Products carry distinctive names — among them the Grand Opening volume shampoo, the Epic Retreat and Silver Retreat treatment lines, and styling items like Poem Of A Swirl curl cream and the Secret Veil dry shampoo mist, which the company's journal describes as having had the longest development time of any of its products. The Silver Retreat range uses violet pigments to counteract discolouration in lightened hair.

The brand groups its formulations under two in-house labels: "Noir Selected Proteins," combining silk and hydrolyzed wheat protein, and "Noir Selected Oils," drawn from camellia, macadamia and argan. Other ingredients it highlights include Pinot Noir grape seed extract, sea moss extract and aloe vera.

Sustainability is central to how the company describes itself. NOIR says its products are 100% vegan and cruelty-free and that it does not test on animals [2]. It states that every step of production — from the laboratory and factory to printing and ingredient cultivation — is climate-compensated, and that for every tree used in its paper packaging two are planted [6]. Packaging is described as using recyclable aluminium, PET and environmentally certified paper, and the company says it reduces the water content of its formulas to cut transport weight. No third-party certifications are listed in the available sources.

Beyond the 2017 Swedish Beauty & Cosmetics Awards recognition, coverage of the brand has been limited and largely regional. It was reviewed by two Dutch publications in 2017 around its Netherlands launch — Beautybyfrieda, which reviewed thirteen products, and Wellnessspots, which tested the Epic Retreat shampoo and conditioner. No Wikipedia entry exists for the brand, and no major English-language editorial coverage was identified.

The brand remains active. Its product website lists a current catalogue and operates as an online store, and the salon site references a price list effective 1 April 2026 [9], indicating continued operation. The company runs two salons, in Stockholm and Gothenburg [8].