Brooke Shields Wants to Empower Women Over 40 with Her New Haircare Line: 'Scalp Health Is Sexy' (Exclusive)

Brooke Shields has long been known for her gorgeous head of hair.

The model and actress, 59, knows all too well, though, that as you get older, your hair changes — and so does your skin (including your scalp!). It was after having candid discussions with her Beginning Is Now community over the past few years and noticing that there was a gap in the market for haircare geared toward women over 40 that she realized that maybe she could be the one to fill it.

So she did.

“Women [in this age group] go through a myriad of changes, but there is a white space for problem solving,” Shields tells PEOPLE exclusively. “The predominant question that was coming up [within the community] was hair. Quality of hair, hair loss, hair texture, the changes in your hair. So we started to realize, okay, I think we’re going to have to go into this realm to solve these problems.”

What came next was months of research, building a team, and in-depth conversations about what would eventually become Shields’ very first brand: Commence, which is available to shop now. Specifically designed as a problem-solving haircare line for women over 40, Commence launched with three hero products to “address hair scalp health from the root all the way to the tip to really understand what’s happening to hinder growth,” Shields says.

When women cross 40, hair tends to be more brittle and dry — and as Shields says, “a woman over 40 never wants to hear [that word in relation to] any part of her body.” But with the products her team has created, women can target the usual dryness they experience on their scalps that often leads to damaged hair.

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Shields and Mark Knitowski, head of research and development, say they didn’t want to launch with the traditional shampoo and conditioner, because they know most women already have the formulas they love. Instead, they wanted to provide supplementary products that would work in tandem with what’s already in your routine.

• 2-in-1 Instant Shampoo ($21): Designed to “extend time between washes,” this powder is made with quaternized hyaluronic acid (HA in its smallest form) and rice powder. “The quaternized hyaluronic acid will feed dry areas of your scalp while the rice powder will absorb any excess oil,” Knitowski says. “So it gives you more volume, it gives you better growth from the scalp outward, and it really makes your hair healthier. It’s a proactive approach rather than a reactive approach.”
• 3-in-1 Leave-In Conditioner ($26): This has everything you need to add shine, tame frizz and increase softness in your strands. “[The product] doesn’t weigh your hair down,” Knitowski says. “It’s very lightweight. It uses different coconut ingredients, including coconut fatty acids, which really smooths, softens and provides shine. It also really gives you this volume without [the hair] being weighed down.”
• Root Serum ($30): Created to treat the scalp so that the root grows into a healthy atmosphere, this serum is made with copper, magnesium, iron and zinc that have gone through a bio-fermentation process. “Our goal is that women, when they start using this, they’re going to see an improvement right away,” Knitowski says. “Every time they use it, [hair health will] just get better and better.”

All of the products also have what the duo is calling the Commence Complex, which Knitowski says is a “combination of four different ingredients that really maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of the product.”

He adds, “All the formulas have less than 60% water. That’s how much active is in here. Actives are anything that actually provide efficacy and nutrients. So unlike a lot of products where you have 85% water, none of these are above 60%, which is incredible.”

Another piece of the Commence Complex is how it stabilizes scalp health, which is also how it keeps your hair healthy.

“It really creates that microbiome for your scalp to be healthier and start to engage in these ingredients so that it maximizes what they’re there to do for your hair,” he says. “This is what’s at the core of every product.”

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Knitowski notes that many brands right now are focusing on bond building, and that’s something they didn’t want to do. Instead, they turned to scalp health, which Shields was “amazed” to find was so often not treated as part of skincare despite being such a large swath of skin.

“Scalp health is sexy,” Shields says with a laugh, but she’s actually very serious about it because she knows the importance of how your hair makes you feel.

“I think beauty is self-care and I think it is wellness,” Shields says. “I used to think beauty was vanity, that it was too self-important. Now I’m 59 and I’m like, ‘Oh, wait a minute, it’s all about me right now.’ When my hair looks good, it changes my whole day.”

Shop Commence now.