Exploring Life & Business with Jade Wong of AWARE HAIR

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jade Wong

Hi Jade, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?

I grew up in Los Angeles in and around salons because of my mom, Tina. She’s been a master stylist and trichologist for over 40 years. She started beauty school at 16 and went on to build an extraordinary career building salons and spas for The Ritz Carlton, Marriott Hotels, and Fairmont. She’s also helped thousands of clients directly with their hair and scalp issues as a thinning hair specialist. For most of my life, I saw firsthand how much care, intelligence, and physical labor goes into this industry – and how much trust people place in the hands of a great stylist.

As a child, I thought I would follow in her footsteps. But when the 2008 financial crisis hit, I watched how hard the beauty industry could be on small business owners and service professionals. That left a mark on me. I ended up choosing what I thought was the safer path: studying economics, entering the corporate world, and eventually working internationally in strategy and consulting.

On paper, my life looked like the definition of “success”. I had a high-paying career, traveled constantly, and was doing the kind of work many people aspire to. But at the same time, I was dealing with something very personal: severe hair shedding, scalp psoriasis, and the kind of ongoing buildup and irritation that no expensive routine seemed to fix. The more products I tried, the more overwhelmed my scalp seemed to become.

What changed everything was coming back to my mom. She had already spent years thinking deeply about the gap she was seeing in the salon world: plenty of products that promised shine, softness, or styling performance, but very few that truly respected the scalp as the foundation of healthy hair. She wanted something different – not a shelf full of unnecessary formulas, but a high-performance, professional-grade system that could support scalp health, improve the feel and look of the hair, and be safe enough to stand behind fully.

When I first tried what she had been developing, I was honestly shocked. My hair felt cleaner, lighter, and more balanced almost immediately, but more importantly, my scalp felt calmer. That was the beginning of a much bigger realization for me: a lot of what I thought were “hair problems” were really scalp problems. And once I saw that, I couldn’t unsee it.

Eventually, I left my corporate career and moved back to LA to build AWARE with my mom. What started as a deeply personal solution became a brand with a much bigger mission: to raise the standard for scalp care in the professional beauty industry and create formulas that stylists and clients can trust without compromise.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?

Not at all. It’s been deeply meaningful, but definitely not smooth.

One of the biggest emotional drivers behind AWARE was watching what this industry can cost the people who give so much to it. My mom spent decades working with her hands, standing for long hours, constantly exposed to salon chemicals. Over time, we saw the toll that environment could take. We also lost people in our salon community to serious health issues after years of exposure to harsh treatments and ingredients that were normalized for far too long. Those experiences changed the way we think about the beauty industry forever.

For us, AWARE was never just about making better scalp care products. It was also about asking harder questions. What are stylists exposed to all day, every day? What are clients putting directly onto an already stressed scalp? What has the industry accepted as normal that actually deserves to be challenged?

That mindset made development much harder, because once you decide you truly care about every ingredient, every sourcing decision, and every manufacturing choice, nothing is simple. We have had to walk away from easier options more than once. We switched labs during development because we refused to compromise on quality. We replaced ingredients even when a supplier or lab told us the issue was “minor,” because we knew cumulative exposure matters, especially for professionals. We learned very quickly that the same INCI name on paper does not mean the same quality, purity, or performance in real life.

That has probably been the biggest lesson of all: building something with integrity is slower than building something for speed. But in our case, slower was necessary. We are making products for people we know personally: stylists, salon owners, clients, women like my mom who have spent their lives caring for others. We take that seriously.

Another lesson has been learning to trust the long road. There were many moments when the easier move would have been to simplify the formulas, cut costs, broaden the message, or chase trends. But AWARE has become what it is precisely because we didn’t do that. We stayed focused on creating something more lasting: a scalp-first brand rooted in professional credibility, visible results, and genuine care.

We’ve been impressed with AWARE Hair, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?

AWARE is a natural luxury, professional-grade scalp care brand founded by a mother and daughter who came to this from two very different angles: my mom through decades behind the chair, and me through my own experience with hair shedding, scalp issues, and frustration with a market full of noise.

What sets us apart is that we do not see the scalp as an afterthought. We see it as the starting point. Healthy hair does not begin with styling, it begins with the condition of the scalp barrier, the follicular environment, and the daily rituals that either support or disrupt both.

Our formulas are designed to bring together the things the industry often separates: elevated sensory experience, visible performance, and thoughtful formulation. Our patent-pending AWAREBio Complex blends clinically-proven bioactives with antioxidant botanicals to deliver real results, and we make our products in small batches in the U.S. with a strong emphasis on quality and freshness.

AWARE has grown into more than a product line. It has become a treatment philosophy and an educational platform around scalp health. Today, we are in more than 50 luxury salons, spas, and wellness destinations, and we’ve been incredibly encouraged by the response from both professionals and clients. We’ve also recently been recognized for our innovation as an emerging brand, which has been very meaningful because it affirms that the industry is ready for a more sophisticated conversation around scalp care.

I think people connect with us because AWARE is not trying to be everything to everyone. We are very intentional. We are building for people who want more substance, more trust, and more care in the products they use. For stylists, that means formulas that respect their craft and their working environment. For clients, it means a ritual that feels luxurious but is grounded in real scalp and hair needs.

At its core, AWARE is about raising the standard — not just for what goes into a bottle, but for how the beauty industry thinks about health, performance, and responsibility.

What makes you happy?

I think happiness finds me most in moments that feel grounded and real.

Building AWARE with my mom has been one of the greatest gifts of my life. There is something incredibly special about getting to build a company with someone you admire so deeply, especially someone whose work ethic, resilience, and standards I’ve looked up to my whole life. Some of my happiest moments are actually very simple: having coffee with her, talking through a new idea, hearing about a client’s results, or getting feedback from a stylist who feels genuinely seen by what we are creating.

I also love moments of beauty and connection outside of work: being in nature, moving my body, hosting dinners, opening a good bottle of wine, laughing with people I love. I’ve learned that happiness is not really a permanent state. For me, it is something quieter: a feeling that I’m in alignment with the life I’m building and the people I’m building it with.

Pricing:

To learn more about AWARE Hair, visit our website. AWARE is currently available through a growing network of select salons, spas, and wellness partners.

Contact Info:

• Email: contact@awarehair.com
• Website: https://awarehair.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/awarehaircare/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/awarehaircare