In 2005, OG supermodel Cindy Crawford launched her Meaningful Beauty skin-care system to give people access to the formulations she’d be using under the guidance of French skin guru Dr. Jean-Louis Sebagh. Now, she’s expanding into the hair category, which Crawford says was inspired by changes in her hair that she experienced after having children.
“After I had my kids, I definitely noticed my hair changed,” she says. “Look, as women we know we’re going to get wrinkles and laugh lines and crow’s-feet, so we kind of know that’s coming. And you know you’re going to get a few gray hairs, and what you can do about that if you want to color your hair. But no one prepared me for the fact that my actual hair was going to change—that it was going to be more brittle and thinner and duller. It never really went back to how it was before. I also noticed it was harder for hairdressers to get my hair to behave the way they wanted it to. So a few years ago, my team at Meaningful Beauty and I thought, ‘Could we take the way we’ve approached skin care and apply it to hair?’”
They started playing with formulas, which included the brand’s signature super antioxidant melon leaf stem cell technology, and landed on the perfect ones that gave Crawford her pre-baby hair back (or very close to it). “What I love about this is that it’s a system, so the products are designed to work together. They also have our super antioxidant in them, along with peptides, stem cells and silk proteins. I’ve noticed my hair is fuller, stronger—even my ponytail feels thicker—and I have less breakage and shedding. I love the way it feels, and it’s easier for me to brush through after I shower.”
Her hairstylist Richard Marin also noticed more bounce and manageability, and wondered what Crawford had done. “Richard knows my hair so well, so for him to notice a difference in my hair was really exciting. He was like, ‘You got your old hair back.’ As women I think we reflect on our old hair a lot. When I see my daughter Kaia’s hair, I’m like ‘Ugh, give me my old skin, give me my old hair, give me my old legs.’”
In addition to shampoo and conditioner ($49 each), the collection also contains a Restorative Scalp Treatment ($45), which Crawford says is the hero product. “So many women—myself included—layer a lot of stuff on our hair to get the look we want without realizing healthy, good-looking hair starts with a healthy scalp. I use this treatment after I shower where I specifically have problems, which is my hairline, my part and the crown of my head, so I really make sure to spray it there. Not only does it give me a little extra volume when I blow-dry my hair, but it’s not greasy or heavy so you can use it every day and not worry that it’s going to weigh your hair down. I wanted women to want to use it every day and not worry.”
The team also added a Styling and Protecting Spray ($42) and Root Touch Up ($37). “We also wanted to add things that I also use on a daily basis, and I don’t like a lot of product in my hair for my real life—what I call my non-modeling life. But, what I do 100-percent use every time I wash my hair is a heat protectant. After I towel-dry my hair, I put this light mist all over and it protects from heat, it moisturizes and it just kind of helps calm everything down. We call it a four-in-one because the other way I really like using it is day two or day three of a blow-dry, I spray a little in my hand and use it to smooth everything down. And the last product is the Root Touch-Up, which I’ve found super useful, especially over the last year when I wasn’t able to get my hair colored as regularly. It’s a powder that comes in six colors, and you can use it in between colorings. I find the powder ones on a brush really easy to use on the hairline or in the part.”
One big thing the supermodel says she’s learned as she’s gotten older: “You do have to baby your hair more as you age. Just like your skin. I don’t go and sit in the sun like I used to when I was 20. I do risk-reward and it’s not really worth it. I’ll take the time with my hair: I pin it up when I sleep or work out to preserve my blowdry; I sleep on a silk pillowcase. I feel like if you just give your hair a little bit more love as you age and if you color your hair—because that’s really rough on it—it will thank you for it.”
During our Zoom meeting, the Crawford also commented on a few of her iconic hair looks over the years (below), including the crowd-favorite “Cindy Hair” that many women pined for in the ’90s.
“That is pretty 80s. I think it was for a magazine called Le Magazine. I’m not sure who the hairdresser is, but I kind of love it. It’s like I could be in an MTV rock music video. It’s like ‘mall bang’ goes wild. But I kind of like the highlights in my hair there, and I think that was a pretty modern texture that we weren’t seeing a lot of then. But don’t try this at home (laughs).”
“I did these workout videos in the 90s with Radu, and it was really cool. In the same way that Meaningful Beauty was about me sharing access to Dr. Sebagh, doing my exercise video was really my first foray into sharing something that I had access to, which was this incredible trainer named Radu. I was in just such good shape and I felt strong. And when you are physically strong, it translates into you feeling mentally strong. And I think that really helped my sanity actually in those days of modeling and running around the world like a crazy woman. Obviously for most of my workouts I didn’t look like this picture—this was for the video—but I feel like this look is so ‘Cindy’ though because it’s like a nice blowdry with a round brush and probably a Velcro roller, which I still stand by to this day. I like the ease of this: I call this ‘sexy girl-next-door hair.’ It also used to be a thing to wear your leotard over your leggings, and it was a G-string. And I’m sure I was wearing white Reeboks too, with crunched-down socks (laughs).”
“This was for a Superbowl Pepsi commercial, so I think when they’re hiring Cindy Crawford, they want ‘Cindy Crawford,’ especially for something like this. In some ways I think this was the most iconic hair, and it was big—that was 90s hair. It needed to be as big as you could get it. I think what was definitely a signature of mine was that blonde chunk of hair in the front—that streak—and that was actually from Oribe, an amazing hairdresser who sadly passed away two years ago. He had this idea that he wanted to put a blonde chunk in my hair and I did kind of work that look for several years, and to this day so many friends of mine who are hairdressers tell me so many women came in wanting their hair like that. But the truth is, that chunk looked really good in pictures—it was meant to catch the light—but it wasn’t really meant for real life. It just photographed really well. So I think it was frustrating for hairdressers because they were trying to get that look for women but it really wasn’t meant for streetwear. Another funny thing, which you don’t see in this is that I’m wearing cutoffs. They couldn’t get the wardrobe right, so I had worn my classic 501 Levi’s to set that day and the stylist asked me if they could cut my jeans, and I said sure, and I still have those jeans. Then I redid the same commercial 15 years later and I wore the same ones. I think I can still get into them too, but they probably wouldn’t look quite the same.”
