Boasting 20 years of hair care expertise, Sandrine Jeanne Rose, acclaimed founder of KANELLIA institutes, presents SJR (SandrineJeanneRose), a young brand of hair care for relaxed, straightened and discolored hair.
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In the early 1990s, Sandrine Jeanne Rose moved on from a successful career in modeling and began working in close collaboration with a team of doctors in chemistry and pharmacists to make a name for herself in the cosmetic industry.
Born to a father from Martinique and a mother from Brittany, she created KANELLIA, her own brand of cosmetics and hair care for dark, mixed and black skin and for curly, frizzy hair.
Long before Afro hair (natural or relaxed) became a fad, at a time when the Web, beauty blogs and particularly You Tube didn’t exist, customers seeking beauty advice and care discovered Afro-Caribbean skin and hair care centers, a brand new concept developed by the young entrepreneur.
A pioneer of ethnic cosmetology, Sandrine Jeanne Rose built KANELLIA into the leading brand for skin of color and Afro hair.
In less than 10 years, KANELLIA grew to become one of the leaders in beauty products for Afro-Caribbean skin and hair.
The brand earned numerous professional awards, including the « Black Beauty Trophy » in 1996 and a « Beauty Award » in 2003.
After successfully establishing the brand in the major French perfumeries Marionnaud and Sephora, and department stores such as Les Galeries Lafayette and Le Printemps, SJR left the company in 2007 and ceded it to a laboratory that was meant to ensure the brand’s ongoing development with an international focus.
In 2011, Sandrine Jeanne Rose decided to share her expertise and co-authored the book Beauté Black : le guide pratique de la beauté noire (A practical guide to black beauty) with Sonia Rolland, with whom she had worked on the Mixa line for dark skin.
In 2012, she launched SJR, her new line of hair care for relaxed, straightened and discolored hair.
She was joined by her daughter Brunella Emmanuelli, who is also biracial, born to a Corsican father and her Martiniquais mother. Only 20 years old at the time, she took on international development and distribution for the brand, as well as communication with a strong emphasis on the blog and social networks.
Brunella came on board at a time when she was still questioning what direction to take her career. After journalism and media studies (and moving to New York for a few months to expand her professional network), she enrolled in the student-entrepreneur program at the EDC Paris Business School La Défense.
Fueled by their shared passion for beauty, she and her mother decided to pursue this new adventure together.
SJR features 6 hair care products that are mainly keratin-based and formulated for hair that suffers from overuse of blow-drying, straightening, relaxing or coloring. The line is distributed in health and beauty stores in France and internationally.
The SJR line is composed of:
– Magic Relaxer kit sodium-free and enriched with keratin
– Magic Emulsion pre-shampoo
– Magic Shampoo with keratin, sulfate-free
– Magic Mask intense repair with keratin
– Magic Styling Fondant with keratin
– Magic Styling Wax with shea butter and royal jelly
(*I’m still hesitating…)
Aware of the passion and debate surrounding Afro hair, SJR stresses that the purpose of brand is to care for hair—whether natural, relaxed or discolored—the customer is free to choose but must make the care and maintenance of her hair a priority.
SJR admits she is shocked to see some people or companies in the cosmetics industry call themselves hair care product experts without proper knowledge of the ingredients, thus exposing the poorly informed consumer to the risk of seriously damaged hair.
The problem, according to SJR, is that black women don’t understand their hair—the issues it faces and the qualities it possesses. She provides a simple example: 9 times out of 10, hair relaxer brands say to start at the nape of the neck, even though that is the most fragile area, when application should really begin at the top of the head.
She feels that women’s lack of knowledge about their hair is what does the most damage. They need to gain a better understanding of their hair so they can provide better care for it.
Many of the American hair care products for Afro hair found in France are not legally registered and contain unauthorized active ingredients.
(*Now pay close attention to how to apply the relaxer…)
Drawing on her proven expertise, SJR does not place a product on the market that has not undergone at least a year of testing for effectiveness.
SJR reminds us that France is the world cosmetic leader and advises the public to be extremely vigilant about checking the composition of foreign products.
Quality-driven and attentive to her customers’ needs, SJR offers free telephone advice and consumer support—a one-of-a-kind service that can be a victim of its own success, since customers at a loss about what to do for their hair need to be reassured, heard and guided.
With an increasingly international clientele—80% of former KANELLIA users who followed her to SJR are from the West Indies—as time goes on, more and more African women are putting their trust in her products. The surprise comes from North Africa, which now represents 50% of SJR hair care consumers.
SJR Sandrine Jeanne-Rose products are now available in the West Indies and Reunion Island, as well as in Africa with four points of sale in Senegal, three in Gabon, and in Tunisia (full list on website).
An original campaign by illustrator Angéline Melin, known for her drawings on the hit websites Do It Paris and My Little Paris, shows an affordable, highly cosmopolitan brand in touch with its consumers.
***EXPERT CARE SUITABLE for ADULTS and CHILDREN!
SJR hair care products with keratin are tested under medical supervision.
They are perfectly suitable for both adults’ and children’s hair!
Slowly but surely, SJR intends to forge ahead with no investor aid, for her experience with KANELLIA and subsequent departure has still left its mark on her.
Next step for the young brand: the opening of a flagship store in Paris and abroad, as well as a project for a hair and skin beauty training center and a You Tube advice channel to interact with customers.
For Brunella, the objective is to make further strides internationally in Brazil, Africa, Lebanon and the USA.
Find SJR online at www.sandrinejeannerose.fr and get beauty tips on the blog and Facebook page.
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