Dawn Myers is revolutionizing textured hair care with Mint

“I was watching Shark Tank, and there was another curly girl idea,” Dawn Myers recalls, marking the moment she identified a systemic gap in beauty hardware. While the industry spent decades focused on straightening tools, Myers turned to her kitchen table to engineer a solution for the arduous reality of wash days.

Business Faces·October 11, 2026·reads: 296

The result is Mint, a device from her company Richualist that streamlines detangling, conditioning, and styling into a single, heated stroke using refillable product pods. By automating the application process, the tool cuts styling time from over an hour to roughly seven to ten minutes. Myers reports that the device also reduces hair breakage by up to 70%, addressing a long-standing void in a market that historically ignored the specific needs of textured hair.

Securing the path to production required personal sacrifice and resilience. Myers liquidated her 401(k) and sold her home to fund initial development, eventually raising $1.4 million. Her journey included navigating a stage three colorectal cancer diagnosis, often closing investment deals from a chemotherapy chair at Johns Hopkins. After securing backing from Mark Cuban and Emma Grede, Myers successfully launched the product on Ulta’s platform.

Collaboration with materials science firm Dow provided the engineering expertise necessary to navigate the complexities of hair bonds and product distribution. Today, as Richualist prepares for a sold-out status and a showcase at TechCrunch Disrupt, Myers views the tool as more than a convenience. For her, it represents the overdue arrival of sophisticated, bespoke technology for a demographic long overlooked by R&D suites.