You Heard It Here First
A Supermodel & Her Hairstylist Take On Clean Beauty
From its ingredient-conscious formulas to its compostable packaging, Maison Beaux wants to rethink what luxury hair care can look like.
Clean beauty has come a long way since the ’90s, but let’s be real: Better ingredients don’t always make for better results.
Just ask celebrity hairstylist Teddy Charles. “All the products that I’ve used that are clean don’t work,” he recalls telling supermodel (and fiancé) Amber Valletta when the two first discussed the possibility of launching a hair care line together.
Valletta, a longtime environmental advocate, wasn’t willing to budge on her clean beauty standards. And Charles, who counts Robert Pattinson and Hailey Bieber as some of his clients, wasn’t willing to settle for anything less than salon-worthy results. Enter: Maison Beaux, the pair’s new hair care line that doesn’t compromise on either.
Three years in the making, the line began with a list of 2,850 ingredients the founders wanted to leave out. Among them were fossil fuel-derived polymers, commonly used in styling products to give them their hold. “We were looking at how the formulas were going to act in the environment and how they were going to react to you,” Valletta explains.
Finding clean alternatives meant getting creative with formulation, from ingredients like oat peptides to an exosome-based delivery system typically found in skin care. But the formulas also had to hold up outside the lab. Charles tapped fellow hairstylists to test them throughout development, ensuring they really lived up to the pro-grade standard.
“We wanted your hair to move with you, even when it’s styled,” he says. “Your hair shouldn’t feel like it has a ton of product in it. You should be able to run your fingers through it and have it feel soft and healthy.”
Their high standards extended to the packaging, too. Both fashion veterans, Charles and Valletta wanted the bottles to feel “sexy and elegant” — not “clinical,” as Charles puts it. They landed on sleek brown bottles that look rather sculptural on your shower shelf, with one more practical bonus: Once they’re empty, the whole thing can go straight into the compost, pump and all. (According to the brand, the biodegradable material breaks down in as little as 12 weeks.)
“We wanted to take the worry out of wondering, ‘Is the packaging safe for the environment? Are the ingredients healthy for me? Do the formulas actually work?’” Valletta says. “We’ve done the hard work for you. Now go and have fun.”
To that end, Maison Beaux’s five-product lineup keeps things appropriately simple. There’s shampoo and conditioner to prep the hair, a collagen mask to treat, and a volumizing spray and styling cream to style. The entire collection shares the same light, uplifting fragrance, with notes of bergamot, lavender, and cedarwood. Ahead, a closer look at the line, which was released Oct. 6.
The Hair Prep Duo
If you’ve sworn off detox shampoos after one too many left your hair feeling like straw, Le Shampoo might convince you otherwise. It uses biodegradable cleansing agents to gently but efficiently wash away buildup, while an amino acid complex and biodegradable conditioning polymer keeps strands feeling soft and smooth.
Those same hydrating ingredients are also found in Le Conditioner, along with an oat peptide intended to help strengthen the hair fiber. “This conditioner doesn’t make my hair feel coated or waxy, which is incredible,” says Valletta. “I use it every single day.”
The Collagen Mask
When your regular conditioner isn’t quite cutting it, Le Ultimate Mask takes a more intensive approach to hair repair. The once-weekly treatment uses the brand’s exosome technology to deliver its active ingredients to the hair. “This is where our clean science comes in,” Valletta explains. “It strengthens your hair only where you need it, so it doesn’t feel weighed down.”
Designed to be left on for five to 10 minutes after shampooing, the mask also contains oat peptides and vegetable proteins to help strengthen strands, plus amino acids for added moisture and shine.
The Styling Cream
To finish the three-step program, there’s Le Styler — a multitasking cream that works for blow-drying, air-drying, or smoothing down flyaways on a non-wash day.
Powered by polymers derived from bamboo and chia seed, it helps styles hold their shape, whether you’re adding bounce to a blowout or defining curls with a diffuser. Despite its thicker texture straight out of the tube, it doesn’t leave a crunchy cast. Instead, it feels surprisingly lightweight once worked through the hair.
The Volumizing Spray
For those with fine hair or anyone who wants a lighter alternative to Le Styler, there’s Le Voluptuous. Mist it onto damp strands before blow-drying for heat protection and extra volume, or apply it to dry hair as a finishing touch to tame frizz and help keep your style in place.
“We wanted to make sure that any hair type or hair texture could use our products,” Valletta says. “We will build out in different ways, but in general, our lineup right now should work across the board.”
