Designer Spotlight is a regular column focusing on style/design and the professional woman

Farbod Mmehr
Jun 13, 2018
2 min read

Beauty & Fashion Influencer @negin_mirsalehi is best known for her luscious, long hair locks admired by her 4.6 million followers on Instagram, Youtube, and namesake blog. However, these days, Mirsalehi is expanding her social reach beyond the digital realm to share her hair beauty secrets offline with everyone by creating, @gisou_official , a line of natural bee-based hair products. When Gisou originally launched with 10,000 hair oil bottles, it sold out in three months. Gisou’s texture spray released in July and within 48 hours it had 2,000 orders. Company sales projections are $3 million for 2017 and $5 million for 2018.

Here is her story about how she has come up with the idea

The story begins with my father

You could say beekeeping is in my blood; it's been in my family for six generations. My father learned to keep bees from his father, who succeeded my great-grandfather and so on. Growing up in a beekeeping family there was always an abundance of the finest natural ingredients from my father’s beehive.

And my mother

When Mom came to the Netherlands thirty years ago, she was training to become a hairdresser. Unimpressed with the haircare products on offer back then, one of the first things she did was experiment making her own.

The signature ingredient

Mom set about developing her own formula, using as many natural ingredients as possible. One thing she knew for sure: Dad’s bees were going to provide the key ingredient.

The power of bee ingredients

Look inside the beehive and you'll find the Mirsalehi bees hard at work. The honey from their comb is rich in minerals, vitamins and antioxidants. It holds the key to beautifully conditioned locks. The propolis the bees use to reinforce their home is known for its strengthening and preservative properties. Ideal for strengthening and protecting your hair from heat damage.

Gisou Honey Infused Hair Oil

Over the years Mom developed several haircare formulas. My go-to solution has always been the homemade oil derived from my dad’s honey, which I continue to use in different ways every single day. For this reason, Honey Infused Hair Oil became Gisou’s first product.