The Moment I Knew I Had to Make This Myself

I never set out to start a hair care brand.

For nearly twenty years, I've stood behind the chair as a hairdresser — through countless trends, countless product launches, and what feels like every haircare brand on the market passing through my work place at one point or another. I thought, after two decades, I'd have found the products. The ones I'd trust completely, recommend without hesitation, and use on my own family without a second thought, the ones that look stunning in every shower or bathroom.

I hadn't. And the more I learned, the harder that became to ignore.

When Everything Changed

Having children changed a lot of things, but one thing I didn't expect was how much it would change my relationship with the products I used every single day. My skin became more sensitive. My hormones shifted. And suddenly I was reading ingredient lists differently — not as a hairdresser recommending a product, but as someone genuinely asking, what is this doing to my body?

That question didn't have an easy answer. So many of the products I'd used and loved for years were full of things I now wanted to avoid — for myself, and for the clients trusting me with their hair and skin every day.

At the same time, I'd always been a little obsessed with essential oils — but for me, that wasn't just professional curiosity. I've struggled with anxiety for a really long time, lavender and frankincense became something I genuinely leaned on. When I could feel a panic attack building, I'd rub them on my forehead and wrists, and that small ritual gave me a sense of relief I needed for that moment. I'm also a severe migraine sufferer, and peppermint became my go-to for headache tension.

So these oils weren't an abstract interest to me. They were things that had genuinely helped me through some hard moments. Which made it all the more obvious, eventually, that they belonged in something people used every single day — not just kept in a little bottle for emergencies, but built into a ritual you already had. I kept coming back to the same thought: why isn't this in more of the products we use every day? Why was washing your hair just... washing your hair, when it could be so much more?

The Idea That Wouldn't Let Go

The actual idea for a custom shampoo came out of nowhere in particular — which is maybe how the best ones do. I had a client in my chair, and we were just chatting, throwing around fun business ideas the way you do when there's no real pressure behind any of it. Somewhere in that meaningless, easy conversation, the idea of a custom shampoo got mentioned. And something about it just stuck. I remember thinking, almost on a whim: why the heck not?

That offhand moment became the beginning of something I couldn't quite put down. So I started taking it seriously — enrolling in a certificate in business, then an online course, slowly building the foundation for an idea I didn't fully understand yet but couldn't stop thinking about.

Raising My Hand

Eventually, that online training led me to a conference —  in a room of around 500 people. I sat through a keynote from a young founder who'd built her own product line from scratch, and something about hearing her talk through the how of it — not just the dream, but the actual process — made the idea feel possible for the first time, properly possible, not just a nice thought I had in the salon one day.

So I did something that made butterflies flood my stomach. In a room of 500 strangers, I put my hand up and asked the one question that I hadn't been able to google or email my way to an answer: how on earth do you even begin formulating a product? no one id reached out to had answered me, no manufacturers had responded to my emails no one wanted to talk to a hairdresser, a young mum and help her find the way to bring her dream to life.

I got an incredibly useful answer from our speaker but I didn't expect the rest of the answer to come from someone sitting in the crowd. But after the session, a woman approached me — A world renowned Doctor, a cosmetic scientist — and we started talking. That conversation was the real beginning of Self Centred Hair Care. One question, asked out loud instead of just thought, was the moment my dream stopped being a someday idea and started becoming something real.

What I Actually Wanted to Build

Once I had a formulator in my corner, the brief I gave her was simple, even if the execution wasn't: I wanted salon-quality results — the kind I'd expect from any premium brand I'd recommend professionally — built entirely from clean, NZ-grown botanicals, without sacrificing performance to get there. No compromise. Not "natural, but it doesn't quite work as well." Just better, because we'd built it properly from the ground up.

And I wanted every wash to feel like something more than a chore squeezed into an already-packed day. Becoming a mum taught me that time is the most precious thing we have, and there's rarely enough of it left over for yourself once everyone else's needs are met. So if I could fold a genuine moment of aromatherapy and self-care into something you were already doing every day — something as simple as washing your hair — that felt like the most honest way to give people a little more time back. Not a whole spa morning. Just two minutes, a few times a week, that are actually, deliberately, yours.

That's where the name came from, too. Self Centred — because every product is centred around the self. Around you, specifically. Your hair, your scalp, your needs, your few minutes of calm. Not a generic bottle that's meant for everyone, but something genuinely centred on the person using it.

Where We Are Now

What started as an offhand comment in my chair, and grew into a hand raised in a room of 500 strangers, has become four ranges, eight products, and more late nights than I can count cross-checking ingredient lists, testing formulas, and obsessing over details most people will never notice — but I will, because they matter.

Every product carries New Zealand botanicals chosen because they actually do something for your hair, not because they look good on a label — mānuka, calendula, green tea, sweet orange, lavender, frankincense. Every formula is sulphate-free, silicone-free, and paraben-free, made right here in New Zealand, with science behind every version we landed on.

I don't take it lightly that people have trusted me with their hair for twenty years. Building Self Centred Hair Care is my way of honouring that trust properly — by finally making the products I always wished existed, for the people I care about most, including myself.

Welcome to Self Centred. I'm so glad you're here for the beginning of this.

With love from the chair, Kate Founder, Self Centred Hair Care