Novex

Novex is a Brazilian haircare brand and the flagship line of Embelleze, a personal-care company based in Rio de Janeiro. Its products focus on treating, repairing and styling hair across a wide range of textures, with specialised lines built around ingredients such as Brazilian keratin, argan oil, coconut oil and aloe vera. Embelleze markets Novex as an affordable alternative to salon treatments, and the line is sold in more than 70 countries through retail stores, beauty-supply shops and online channels.

The brand sits within a large parent company. Trade publication WWD ranked Embelleze 50th on its 2024 Top 100 Beauty Companies list, with estimated annual sales of $575.4 million [1]; the company's own site cites a 66th-place ranking [2]. WWD identified Novex as Embelleze's "core brand" and noted that it remained a driver of the group's growth, which WWD put at roughly 25 percent year over year in 2024 [1].

Embelleze was founded by Itamar Serpa Fernandes, a chemical engineer who trained at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and worked as a chemist at Bayer before starting his own business in Nova Iguaçu, in the state of Rio de Janeiro. According to the company, the business was founded on 8 March 1969 — International Women's Day — a date the brand presents as foundational to its stated mission of women's empowerment through hair [3]. The founder's early flagship product was a hair-straightening cream known as "henê", made from seeds he pioneered importing from the Andes.

The founding date is recorded differently across sources. Embelleze's own account places the founding in 1969 [3], while the Portuguese-language Wikipedia entry states that industrial production of the straightening cream began in 1980 [4]. The two are most plausibly reconciled as the company's legal formation in 1969 and a later scale-up of manufacturing around 1980. Serpa, who was also a Nova Iguaçu city councillor and later a federal deputy for Rio de Janeiro, died in July 2023 at the age of 82 [5]. The company is now led by his son, Jomar Beltrame.

Novex is not a separate company but the principal haircare line within the Embelleze portfolio, which also includes brands such as AfroHair, HairLife, AmaciHair and the hair-colour line Maxton. Embelleze remains family-associated through its current president, Jomar Beltrame. In 2012 the parent company underwent a financial restructuring in which 65.9 percent of its liabilities were transferred to a group of twelve partners who formed an entity called Maxton Representações Comerciais [4].

Embelleze frames Novex around the idea of caring for hair as, in the company's words, "one of the most precious assets of every woman", and ties this to a broader message of transformation and women's empowerment [3]. The line is built for diverse hair types — curly, coily, straight and chemically treated — with particular emphasis on textured and Afro hair. Commercially, Novex is positioned as a drugstore-priced brand promising professional-style results; the beauty marketplace Cosmetify describes it as offering an "affordable alternative to salon-quality hair care" [6].

The company states that its formulas are vegan and that no products are tested on animals "during the entire manufacturing process" [3][7]. Embelleze also describes its products as free of petrolatum, parabens and silicones. No third-party certifications are documented.

Novex is organised into specialised lines named for their hero ingredients or hair concerns. Among them are Queratina Brasileira (Brazilian Keratin), an argan-oil line, a coconut-oil line and Super Babosão, built around aloe vera. The Brazilian Keratin range is described by reviewers as intended to reinforce the hair's structure for a smoother, softer finish, and is sold as a multi-step treatment system. Other named lines include the curl-focused Meus Cachos de Cinema and Santo Black, the latter aimed at curly and coily hair.

The brand continues to expand its range. In 2024 Novex introduced two new haircare lines, Dorama and Pistachio, alongside colour launches under the related Maxton brand [1]. Manufacturing is concentrated in Rio de Janeiro, where Embelleze reports producing over 100 million units a year.

Cosmetify characterises Novex as a "cult-favourite" Brazilian brand "powered by nourishing oils, proteins and vitamins that repair, strengthen and hydrate all hair types" [6], and notes its long-standing popularity among people with curly and Afro hair. Beyond marketplace and consumer-review coverage and the WWD industry ranking of its parent company, no formal awards are documented for the brand.

Novex is an active brand. Its parent, Embelleze, operates across more than 70 countries and reported sales growth in 2024, the same year Novex launched its Dorama and Pistachio lines [1]. The brand maintains a dedicated European storefront and active social-media presence under the "novex.europe" handle, with European distribution handled from Portugal.