Whether your hair is curly, straight, or something in between, it's probably as unique as you are.

So why don't hair care products reflect that diversity?

A team at L'Oreal is working to change that by digging into the science of what makes your hair special.

Scientific American Custom Media recently sat down with Sanford Brown, president of

research and innovation at L'Oreal North America and Janet Wangari Olivero, assisted by president

of Advanced Research at L'Oreal North America, to learn more about their work.

Sanford and Janet, I'm so excited to have you both here today. Thank you for

joining me. Great to be here. Thank you for having us. So before we talk about this particular

research related to curly hair, Sanford, I'm wondering if you can just give me a sense of the role of

research overall at L'Oreal. I think a lot of people would be surprised to hear a company

like yours would be involved in science research. So give us a sense of what you're doing over there.

Yeah. So L'Oreal was actually founded by a chemist 115 years ago. He created amongst other things

the first safe hair color.

And really, since that moment in time,

science and innovation has been at the very heart of what we do at L'Oreal.

We're always pushing to discover new areas, discover new frontiers,

and to create really the most desirable solutions and aspirations for consumers

worldwide. And how do you design that research to be culturally inclusive? Well, you know, beauty first

and foremost is an essential need. It's been there since the start of time. It's a social need.

It's how we interact with others. But it also reflects

society. And today, if you look in the U.S., we're becoming a majority-minority nation. And that's why

it's really important that we understand very much so what is the same and what is different

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