01
Stylists decide
No formula ships without sign-off from all four founders. Marketing doesn’t get a vote on the brief.
Since 2019
Built behind
the chair
Cult Mane started as a group chat between four Canadian stylists who kept complaining about the same thing: everything on the backbar was either brilliant and ugly, or beautiful and useless.
In 2019 we put money into a shared account and spent a year annoying a small lab outside Montréal. The first thing we made was a texture spray, because it was the product we all reached for most and the one we all hated most. It took eleven versions. Version seven is still in a drawer somewhere as a warning.
What we learned in that year became the way we work now. We don’t brief a formula from a trend deck. Someone hits a problem on a client — brass coming back in three weeks, a blow-dry that dies in humidity, a curl pattern that won’t clump, and that problem becomes the brief. Then the formula goes back behind the chair, on paying clients, for at least six months. If it does not beat what we already use, it does not launch.
That’s why there are twelve products and not three hundred. It’s a slower business. It’s a much better shelf.
House rules
Six things we
refuse to move on
02
Six months minimum
Every product is used on paying clients for at least half a year before it gets a label.
03
Twelve, not three hundred
If a new product doesn’t replace an old one or solve something nothing else does, we don’t make it.
04
Vegan, always
No animal derivatives, no animal testing, no exceptions for any market.
05
Refills over repurchase
Six empties back to us and the seventh is free. The prepaid label is already in your box.
06
We keep the bad reviews
Three-star reviews are the most useful thing on a product page. They stay up.
The four chairs
Who actually makes this stuff
Nika Vorobei
Co-founder · Cutting — Toronto
Twenty years behind a chair and still the fastest dry cut any of us have seen. Nika decides what a formula has to do before the chemists get near it.
Dan Reyes
Co-founder · Texture — Vancouver
Editorial texture specialist. If a product can’t survive a nine-hour shoot and a subway ride home, Dan kills it.
Mira Halvorsen
Co-founder · Colour — Montréal
Blonde is a whole discipline and Mira runs it. Every colour-safe claim we make goes past her first.
Joana Brito
Co-founder · Education — Calgary
Teaches the Cult Pro programme across four cities. Believes most hair problems are technique problems.
Ingredients
Clean is a
marketing word
We do not use it. What we’ll tell you is exactly what’s in the bottle, why it’s there, and what we left out — sulphates in cleansers, parabens, phthalates, mineral oil and anything animal-derived.
- SiliconesUsed, sparingly, where they’re the best tool. Always water-soluble.
- FragranceOne house accord — Salt + Neroli. Allergens declared in full on every label.
- PreservativesYes. An unpreserved bottle in a wet bathroom is a health problem, not a virtue.
How we got here
Slower than
the deck predicted
The group chat
Four stylists, one shared account and a very patient lab outside Montréal.
2019
Bad Influence, v11
The texture spray launches after eleven formulations. It sells out in nine days.
2021
Two more chairs
Montréal and Vancouver open. The Cult Pro education programme starts with 40 stylists.
2022
The refill programme
Prepaid return labels go into every box. 61% of bottles come back.
2024
Night Shift
Our first overnight bond mask, and the twelfth product we have ever made.
2026