Everist recently celebrated its five-year anniversary and the haircare brand is entering its next phase with a continued focus on “beauty, undiluted,” alongside new packaging and expanded distribution across North America.
Jayme Jenkins and Jessica Stevenson, Co-Founders of the brand, discussed its growth and its future.
Question: Looking back over five years, what were the biggest inflection points that shaped Everist’s growth and brand positioning?
Answer: The first one was our launch in 2021. From day one, we knew that we didn’t want to create products that were not a joy to use. We wanted to create products that felt like an upgrade — better performance, better ingredients, better design — while dramatically reducing waste. Introducing a completely new format to the category was a risk, but it immediately differentiated Everist and helped define our identity as a true innovation-led brand.
The second big moment was the industry and consumer validation we received early on. Being named as one of the year’s best inventions, alongside recognition from major beauty editors and retailers, gave us credibility far beyond our size and helped position Everist as a leader in the emerging concentrated beauty space.
Most recently, one of the biggest strategic shifts has been evolving our messaging to lead with the unique consumer benefits of Everist for supporting hair and scalp health. That shift has significantly accelerated both sales and brand momentum for us.
Q: You’ve said innovation takes time. What were the biggest challenges in getting consumers to understand and adopt concentrate-based haircare?
A: One of our biggest advantages (as well as our biggest challenges) was creating a totally novel product, no one has ever created shampoo, conditioner and body wash concentrates before. A major unlock in our growth was finding a way to explain the product in a way that people could easily understand. Explaining our cream concentrates as a hybrid of haircare and skincare and messaging the benefits of this for hair, scalp and skin, encouraged trial and led to our exponential growth over the last few years.
Q: Can you walk through the “unsexy” realities of scaling a beauty brand and how those challenges influenced your strategy?
A: On the product side it was complex to scale up the production of a totally new form factor with no blueprint of how it was supposed to be done. Lots of failed batches, gritty textures, etc figuring out the right temperatures and mixing speeds. Then there is also the operations of scaling. We have gone out of stock on core products more than a dozen times over the last few years as we try to pair managing our cash flow with growing consumer demand. The results of all of these challenges on the formulation and operations side is a discipline in product innovation, fewer, better launches that are highly differentiated. We never want to launch a ‘me too’ product without a unique point of view.
Q: How has your partnership as founders, and with your community, directly shaped product development and decision-making?
A: Our partnership as founders, and our partnership with the Everist community, has shaped nearly every aspect of product development and decision-making from the very beginning. Internally, we’ve always approached the brand collaboratively, balancing creative vision with deep customer listening and long-term brand building. At the same time, our community has played a direct role in helping shape the evolution of Everist. They’ve been involved in everything from product feedback and innovation to packaging. They are very vocal about packaging! We wouldn’t want it any other way. The answers are there if you’re willing to listen.
Q: As Everist enters its next phase with new packaging and broader distribution, what are the key priorities and risks you’re focused on over the next 12–18 months?
A: One of our biggest priorities over the next 12 to 18 months is ensuring that we evolve the brand without losing the ethos that made customers connect with Everist in the first place. As we introduce new packaging and expand distribution, we’re very focused on building Everist into its full potential as a premium beauty player while staying deeply aligned with our core values and customer experience.
There’s naturally a lot of operational complexity that comes with scaling, from packaging transitions to retail expansion and maintaining supply chain excellence, but the lens we apply to every decision is the customer. We want to make sure that the Everist community feels included in the evolution of the brand, and that we continue listening closely to their feedback as we grow.
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