For years, Brooke Shields has had a massive community of women looking to her to start conversations and share wisdom. Eventually, it became clear that the women following Shields had a similar problem in common—hair aging. Although Shields was originally resistant to creating a beauty brand, it was clear her community wanted not only a conversation but also a solution. From there, her brand Commence was born, and we got the inside scoop from Shields herself.
Hair hero
Shields shares that she was hearing the same complaints from her community about dull, thinning, frizzy hair and dry scalps. From there she was interested in combining the emotional and personal pieces of the experience with a science-backed solution. While the skin-care market feels daunting to Shields, she says she’s more motivated by the hair, eyebrow, scent and body-care spaces.
For women over 40
When you scan the shelves of a Sephora or Ulta a lot of bright, bold bottles jump out at you. When scrolling social media there are more often ads for people in their 20s than anything else. Shields felt that while Gen Z was being targeted by beauty brands, the older generation was getting overlooked. Brands “jump to menopause and all gray coverage,” leaving those in the middle without solutions for their concerns. However, Shields does note that she knows a mother who uses the brand’s Shine-Enhancing Detangler ($18) on her two-year-old’s curls, so the brand welcomes all.
Dry shampoo formulated for mature hair
Shields is seemingly most excited about the 2-in-1 Instant Dry Shampoo ($21), which she notes is the only instant shampoo on the market that has a hyaluronic acid moisturizing component to it, which makes it especially great for mature heads of hair.
Hyaluronic acid is nearly impossible to formulate into a dry product, but head of research and development Mark Knitowski found a way to make it happen. He explains that he uses smaller hyaluronic acid molecules encapsulated in rice powder. The formula then has the power to scan areas of your scalp and send moisture to the parts that need it and avoid spots where there’s plenty of sebum.
Although dry shampoo is generally meant to refresh dirty hair Shields says she uses it as a volumizer on clean hair as well. “On the last movie I did that’s all they used as a volumizer. I would come in with dry, clean hair, and then they’d go through with the product to promote volume, which just looked better on camera,” says Shields.
Shields’ French airport skin-care hack
Shields knows the skin-care space is quite saturated, which is part of why the white space for mature hair felt like the right place for her to focus her energy. She tells us that oftentimes, you can grab a skin-care product from a drugstore that’s “the same as the gazillion-dollar brands.” For example, Shields often opts for a tin of Nivea over luxe lip balms. However, she notes that she usually gets it “in the airport in France because it’s slightly a different formula,” so be sure to stock up next time you’re passing through Paris.
