Alli Webb is back in the hair category, but the perfect blowout is out.

Instead, the Drybar cofounder’s new hair brand, Messy, launching at Sephora online June 24 and in-store June 27, does exactly what it says on the tin, or in this instance copper-colored bottled, delivering just rolled out of bed, no muss no fuss look hair.

“With Drybar, it was a moment in time. It’s been 15 years since we started it. I had come off of a lifetime of trying to get my hair to look this perfect way and Drybar was the perfect blowout,” Webb said over coffee at The San Vicente Bungalows private members club in West Hollywood on an April morning. 

“With COVID-19 and my own personal journey, as I evolved emotionally, so did my hair. In the last couple of years, I’ve been tinkering away with how to embrace what I have, instead of fighting it and trying to create this perfect look.”

Cue Messy — a range of five products: I Am Enough Rough Dry Style Cream, $32, a frizz-fighting styling cream with chickpea and olive stem cell extracts and ucuuba butter; I Am Transformed Instant Silk Revival Spray, $32, a treatment designed to restore, strengthen and hydrate crunchy or frizzy hair powered by vegan silk and upcycled osmolyte technology; I Will Not Be Broken Overnight Repair Hair Serum, $34, an overnight treatment formulated with castor oil and superfoods; I Can Begin Again Shampoo, $32, and I Am Soft I Am Strong’ Conditioner, $32. The latter two both contain oat peptides and olive stem cell extract.

Powered by the rough dry method, Webb’s low-heat technique encourages styling with hands, twisting strands to achieve effortless waves. 

“I’ve been a hairstylist for 30 years, but only in the last few years have I really homed in and learned how to manipulate my hair to look like this. I didn’t use any hot tools today,” Webb said of her method, while running her hands through a California cool mass of long, loose waves.

“I wash my hair. I comb it out. I put our Rough Dry Cream in. I twist and dry it, then I put either oil or our Revival Spray in it. The biggest thing is you can’t touch it until it’s dry.”

She believes there’s a gap in the market for this range, with most consumers blowing out their hair or air drying. She sees her method using these products as lying somewhere in the middle of styling wet hair.

“We’re in the middle, and nobody’s talking about that, which is such an amazing opportunity. If you manipulate [your hair] with a blow dryer and a brush, or you twist it and let it dry, it’s going to dry how you tell it to dry,” she said. “When you’re letting your hair dry, you’re basically leaving it up to the winds and the environment, whereas my hair is very strategically done today.”

This method doesn’t necessarily mean a blanket ban on styling tools, though. “I’m not saying do nothing. Even on some days, if my hair is just being really unruly, I’ll add a couple of pieces, with an iron. I didn’t have to today, and I swear to God, I didn’t put any curls in my hair. Sometimes I do. It just depends on what’s happening with my hair and where I’m going. It’s all about less heat, not no heat. When I started putting less heat on my hair, my hair grew and got healthy.”

She believes this is what consumers want, too. “Right around the time Drybar started and if you think about the years after that, everything was so perfect. I think we’ve all kind of felt the urge to get back to a little bit more of a natural feel.”

To aid them, the brand will be releasing content around what they call the messy method.

To help with funding, Webb raised $5 million, led by Unilever Ventures, in addition to a small family and friends round. “I think that we’re one of maybe two brands that they’ve invested with pre revenue,” she said.

“Alli Webb is once again at the forefront of industry change — her vision and leadership, combined with the proven track record, make this brand a powerful force,” said Rachel Harris, a partner at Unilever Ventures. “With impeccable timing and deep consumer resonance, it’s poised to disrupt and redefine the haircare landscape. That’s exactly why we’re partnering together.”

Unilever Ventures’ other investments include Trinny London, Saie, The Inkey List, Curlsmith and Womaness. It also previously invested in Nutrafol, which is now owned by Unilever.

For retail, Sephora was a no-brainer as that’s where Drybar’s product range was launched.

“Having their vote of confidence was amazing. They signed on with us before there were even products,” said Webb. “They were really in the kitchen with us. I feel so lucky and humbled to get their expertise.”

Carolyn Bojanowski, executive vice president merchandising at Sephora, said: “Messy is committed to simplifying and speeding up hair care routines by empowering individuals to embrace their natural texture through less heat, with innovative products that are suitable for all hair types. We look forward to welcoming this brand, and know that their intentional styling solutions and mission to celebrate individuality will resonate with our clients.”

It’s also a good time to enter the prestige hair category, according to Circana’s latest data. Prestige benefited from hair, which grew 4 percent. Styling products swelled 12 percent.

While Webb’s team is mostly female, she is once again partnering on Messy with her brother Michael Landau, founder and co-CEO.

Alongside her ex-husband Cameron Webb, they cofounded Drybar in 2010 as a blowout specialty concept. It received private equity backing from Castanea Partners and Roark Capital, and eventually developed a successful product line. The product and salon businesses were split up, and the hair products segment was sold to Helen of Troy for $225 million in 2019. In 2021, WellBiz Brands acquired the franchise rights to Drybar‘s salon business. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

In the years since, Webb cofounded jewelry brand Becket + Quill and massage concept Squeeze, released her second book “The Messy Truth” and launched The Messy Collective online community for female founders. 

“Hair is my passion. Over the last five years I experimented with different things, which were all interesting, but nothing has felt like this.”

Her book, in particular, details how her personal life is inextricably linked to her hair journey.

“It’s a very vulnerable story of starting a company, growing a company, scaling and selling. Then there was an undertone of my personal journey, which is messy. I got divorced from my first husband, who was my cofounder. My son went into rehab at 13. Then I got remarried, and then at the 11th hour, I got divorced again, and my mom died,” she recalled. “It was such an interesting juxtaposition of this amazing company that we built, and then my life falling apart behind the scenes and figuring out how to navigate that. 

“It was like, how do I get out there and be this happy founder. I had to really pick myself back up, which is why I wrote the book. I just wanted to tell my story and show people that it can look great and glamorous and amazing, but it’s usually not.”

While she did a lot of work on herself and explored her spiritual side, her hair evolved, too.

“Even now, when I get my hair colored, and my colorist is amazing, and she gives a mean blow out, I’m really not comfortable. It’s the weirdest thing,” she said. “My hair is so much bigger with this kind of hair than when I get it blown out. I love my big hair.”

She now wants other women to feel the same.

“We’re so programmed that you don’t show up to a board meeting without a blowout. That is what I said for years, but now I go to everything with my hair like this and and I get so many compliments, and I do a lot of speaking, and I come with my hair like this, and I’m on TV, and I come with my hair like this, and I’m trying to start paving the way for [the notion that] it doesn’t have to be perfect.”