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“My family owns the oldest Black salon in Oregon,” says Nicole Rose, founder of Ella Dean, an all-natural, premium hair care line for naturally curly and kinky hair. “I am the fourth generation that branched off and started my own hair care brand.” And in Portland, we love that.
Rose is the great-granddaughter of the founders of Dean’s Barbershop, an Albina salon on the registry of historic places for its Black cultural significance. Her grandmother, Ella Dean, is the namesake of the line. “My great-grandparents, Benjamin and Mary Rose Dean, built Dean’s in 1954. My grandmother, Ella Dean, started working there in 1960, and she continued to work there for the next 50 years,” Rose explains. “Today, the shop is still operating, with my aunt, Ella Dean’s daughter, running it.”
Rose’s product line is a natural evolution of her family legacy, featuring oils and extracts more familiar to produce sections than chemically charged drugstore hair care brands. “I started Ella Dean in 2020,” Rose says, “because a lot of the hair care brands on the market use shea butter and coconut oil, which can be very drying to your hair, so I thought to myself, what if we tried fruits, vegetables, and herbs? There have to be other ingredients outside of coconut oil and shea butter. And that’s when I started playing with fruits, vegetables, and herbs.”
Ella Dean’s flagship product, a combination of pomegranate, gooseberry, mustard, rice, hibiscus, and comfrey root oils called Look, but Don’t Touch, is such a bestseller it inspired both an accompanying shampoo and conditioner. Honor Thy Crown, made with pumpkin, cucumber, ginger, and licorice, smells like cucumber. No Time for Flakes is made with black seed oil, onions, burdock root, and dandelion; and So Long, Itch! is made with evening primrose, prickly pears, marshmallow roots, spearmint, and rosemary.
“I want people to feel like they were a part of the Dean family,” Rose says. “I want people to feel like when they’re using Ella Dean, this is what you’re getting. This is what it’s like to be a part of the Dean’s family legacy.” Which apparently means having really, really, really well-cared-for hair.
