Gina Grega: From a chef’s blender emerges dry shampoo

Imagine this scenario. You were trained as a chef so you know your way around a blender. You also remember your mom putting baby powder in your hair as a “get-it-clean-without-washing” method. So you start messing around not with talcum powder (the usual ingredient in dry shampoos) but organic food-grade starches and iron oxide. All of a sudden you have something. And, as the tagline suggests, it’s “not your grandma’s dry shampoo.”

“I didn’t mean it to be a business,” says Menlo Park resident Gina Grega, owner of My Hair Fix, “but one of my friends pushed me to put my dry shampoo on eBay. Someone blogged about the product. Then liquids were banned on airplanes. Suddenly I was in business.”

As Gina explains it, “Things happened unintentionally and very quickly.” She now counts among her product advocates people who don’t want to shampoo daily, those convalescing who can’t shampoo, those trying to fill in thinning hair (the product comes in four “flavors” – black, brown, red and white) and backpackers/campers. The demand is  high enough that Gina needs outside help to produce her U.S.-made product, following her precise “recipe.” She’s also expanded into lip balm and skin soaps.

A transplanted “Navy brat,” Gina has lived in Menlo for seven years in the Willows.  “Geographically it’s perfect for me, between San Francisco and Santa Cruz. I also happen to have a great space that’s pet friendly in a great neighborhood.”

My Hair Fix is available online and Gina’s neighborhood hangout, Cafe Zoe.