International pop star teams up with local beauty entrepreneur
Rita Ora and Anna Lahey tap into the ‘skinification’ of hair with their new beauty brand, Typebea.
Celebrity brands are continuing to flood the market, often leaving consumers overwhelmed by the saturation. There’s Beyoncé‘s Cécred hair care line, Hailey Bieber’s Rhode Beauty, Victoria Beckham Beauty, and earlier this month, Serena Williams launched her make-up brand, Wyn Beauty. Clearly, the celeb-founded beauty brand boom is showing no signs of slowing down.
The latest brand to enter the market is Typebea, a hair care line co-founded by singer and actress Rita Ora, alongside Australian beauty industry heavyweight, Anna Lahey from Vida Glow. You’d be forgiven for being sceptical about the collaboration — as a beauty editor for over a decade, I certainly was — but after sitting down with the co-founders and learning more about the brand, I’m convinced that Typebea is in a league of its own.
With the global hair and scalp care market thriving, and hair loss being the largest category, Ora and Lahey have managed to tap into a market with high demand. Typebea’s first drop of products boasts science-backed ingredients with a focus on hair loss, a concern that the co-founders both have personal experience with. “I still bleach my hair to this day, but understanding that it’s stronger is all I needed,” explains Ora. “It was breaking before and now it can handle what I’m doing to it.”
Lahey swears “hand on heart” that her hair is the healthiest it’s ever been since using G1, Typebea’s overnight Boosting Peptide Serum, every day. During our interview, she applied the product to her freshly styled hair just to prove that it leaves zero oily residue. Within five minutes, I can confirm the serum was undetectable and her blowout remained intact.
In a sit down with The Australian, Ora and Lahey reveal Typebea’s origin story, expansion plans and why this isn’t just another celebrity beauty brand.
Where did the idea for Typebea come from?
Ora: For me, it was all the years of just really torturing my hair. Through my work, it was like a decade of just doing anything to achieve the look. I’ve been through so many different colours, styles, extensions and all the different ways of heat [styling]. It got to the point where I didn’t really have any hair left. In my 20s I wasn’t really focusing on hair health, I was just kind of living my best life. And Anna has been very vocal about her journey with her hair through Vida Glow.
We connected in 2021 in Sydney, for the Vida Glow rebrand event and we became really good friends. I was asking her all things business, and over the years we really bonded with hair — it naturally became our obsession. And then you know, Anna and I decided, let’s just do something together.
Lahey: So Rita came to the rebrand event in 2021 because she was the key talent and that’s how we met. My hair loss story was how I founded Vida Glow and I think that Rita’s hair journey has been fascinating, but I really like the transparency she has with her hair. She’s an international pop star so she’s going to have extensions, she’s going to go pink, she’s going to go peroxide, right? That’s part of her journey and our hair is so much of our identity.
Ora: Exactly, that’s why this brand is so special because it’s about focusing on the environment that your hair is growing in. You can have extensions because there are water based products, like the G1, so it doesn’t ruin it for the girls that have extra hair on their head. I have the Met Gala in three weeks and I’m not going to have this hair. I’ve had to really learn to bring this into my everyday life because I will never stop being experimental with my hair.
Lahey: It was about a year of conceptualising, finding the brand, finding the name and then two years of formulation. We’re really passionate about the ‘skinification’ of hair, you know, having ingredients like salicylic acid in the shampoo in order to remove any dirt or debris or excess oils from the scalp that so that the G1, which has the hero ingredient baicapil, can actually penetrate the follicle of the hair and accelerate the telogen phase of the hair cycle, which is the hair shedding cycle, and then extend the anagen phase which is the hair growth cycle. And having products like a mask that activates in three minutes, because no one has time to get out of the shower for 20 minutes with a mask, and then come back in.
This is for hair growth, to prevent hair loss and reduce hair thinning. It’s for everyone, no matter your hair type. So whether you’re a platinum blonde, have curly or coily hair, it’s hair care for everybody and tested on all different hair types.
Where did the name Typebea come from?
Lahey: Type is for different hair types
Ora: But also, the B is for Anna’s daughter.
Lahey: My only daughter.
I like that the brand is so personal.
Ora: That’s the only way we could have done this.
Lahey: You know, I’ve had a beauty brand for over 10 years, and let me tell you, 10 years later it’s still personal. You know what we were doing last night? The website went live at 11:45pm and the first customer came in at 11:56pm and it was really important for me because I still remember the name of the woman who bought the first Vida Glow product.
How is Typebea different from other hair care brands in the market?
Lahey: For [hair] growth specifically, it’s clinically proven. Our G1, which is the hero product, it’s proven to reduce hair loss by 60% in the first three months and reduce thinning, so you will get results from one bottle, it’s amazing. You can use it the night before you go to bed and within five minutes, it dries.
And the other point of difference is that it’s a completely clean formula so no parabens, no sulphates, no silicones, whilst all the sensorial experiences of what we love in a haircare routine, like the shampoo lather, a deep conditioner that actually detangles, a weightless conditioner, a glossy treatment that activates within three minutes. All of those touch points, but this is for hair growth and promoting hair health.
Rita, as someone who’s known for experimenting with different hairstyles can you tell me a bit about how your personal experiences have influenced Typebea?
Ora: I’ve just always been such a dedicated visual artist with my videos and everything I do. It’s such a big part of my job and I just felt like, how do I not sacrifice my hair health but still commit? Because I’m never going to stop committing, it’s part of my DNA. I’m a very passionate person when it comes to my music, film, video and TV. And so, that’s where Typebea became a thing. I was like, how can we do all these crazy things and I can still be confident that I’m looking after my hair. That’s where it all stemmed from really.
Anna, as the founder of Vida Glow, how does your experience in the wellness industry contribute to launching into haircare?
Lahey: The hair care category is something I’ve been keeping my eye on for a while. We launched Hairology and I saw this immense growth. I mean, that was a product we worked on for two years. The reason we launched Hairology was because obviously hair was always a concern for me and collagen works on hair. And if you look at the hair category as a whole, hair is the biggest beauty category at the moment. Then you start seeing the players in the market and the success that they’re having. But it’s actually not that easy to just launch a haircare brand and hope for the best. The better the competition, the harder it is to cut through the noise. We definitely saw an opportunity there, you would be crazy not to. But what I’ve learnt from Vida Glow is that you don’t just launch something, you have to see that there is actually interest out there in the product, and there definitely was. But with so many brands coming up, how do you make a difference? I think we’ve done a really good job of that.
Rita, you’ve obviously been an ambassador for other beauty brands before. How does it feel to launch your own?
Ora: I mean, this is exactly what I’ve always wanted. I was really transparent with Anna. I was like, listen, I’ve done so much with so many brands and I just feel like I’m giving more than I’m getting back. And I just wanted to be able to say, this is what I’ve done, because I’ve just given so much to other people. And I’m like, well, why? Over time, even if I’ve loved the brand, and I obviously wouldn’t do it if I didn’t love them, I wanted to have something on my own. And so this feels so incredible to sit here with someone and partner up with someone who understands what it takes to make a company.
Considering the competitive landscape of celebrity-backed beauty brands, how will you ensure Typebea stands out?
Lahey: We would be lying if we said we didn’t think about it. Right, like ugh, another celebrity-founded brand. All we can do is ensure we have the best products, and this is the best product I’ve ever used. I’m confident that the feedback from people that use it will be that too. And I think that Rita’s involvement speaks for itself. She’s in pitch meetings, she’s meeting with the team, she’s here.
Ora: I think it’s about understanding what you’re doing. I think sometimes the celebrity doesn’t even really know what’s going on half of the time because they’re not really that present. But I had so much to learn, everything from the product to the ingredients, to what it all does, where the molecules sit to the peptides. I mean, it was a lot of work. Even last night before this press day, I reminded myself of what everything does, because I’m really present and I really, you know, I don’t do things half-heartedly, so I wanted to make sure that it works really well. With TV and film, there is nowhere to hide, so I need to be able to express confidence with everything that I do. And that’s the difference here.
Lahey: I think people see through things that are just someone slapping their name onto something.
What is the future of Typebea? Can you talk about any upcoming product releases or expansion plans?
Lahey: I can’t say too much, but we have a styling range coming out towards the end of this year. We also have a range coming out which will be on a different hair concern. That’s all I can say, but the extension plan is actually quite broad.
