The Dream Product That Started “Everything Everywhere All At Once” Hair Department Head Anissa Salazar’s Brand Tecuane

During the pandemic, work slowed down for Hollywood hairstylist Anissa Salazar, hair department head on the films and television shows “Everything Everywhere All At Once” and “The Santa Clauses,” and she focused on created her dream hair product.

More specifically, her aim was to develop a multi-use, multi-benefit hero product to keep scalps hydrated. Important for her on-set hairstyling, she wanted a formula her clients could use even if they wore a wig for up to 14 hours. “A common issue I see with my clients are scalp concerns, from dry scalp to hair thinning,” says Salazar. “I’m a product snob, and no matter what I would recommend, it seemed nothing was helping.”

She launched the brand Tecuane Hair last year with her dream hair product, $66 Esperanza Scalp Tonic, a daily lightweight leave-in solution. For inspiration, Salazar turned to her grandmother, who shared stories with her about treating hair loss with herbal medicine while growing up on a small ranch in Mexico. Paired with plant proteins and amino acids, the ingredients her grandmother relied upon like rosemary, prickly pear and chamomile are in the scalp tonic, which is named for Salazar’s grandmother. Tecuane is named for a word in the Nahuatl language translating to “large animal” or “wild beast.”

Rather than her grandmother, it was Salazar’s godmother who introduced her to the beauty industry. She had a job in a hair salon, and Salazar would spend time there sweeping up hair and listening to clients gossiping. She considered going to beauty school after earning her GED, but couldn’t afford tuition. “When you don’t have money, no one wants to deal with you,” says Salazar.

Instead, Salazar studied anthropology at a community college in Ventura, Calif. An elective theater makeup course reignited her passion for beauty, and she parlayed that passion into handling makeup and hair for student films and headshots. From there, she landed a gig at MAC Cosmetics and then enrolled in Paul Mitchell The School to become a hairstylist.

The horror film convention Monsterpalooza led to her big break. She passed out her resume and business cards to vendors, and connected with the makeup and hair department at Universal Studios’ Halloween Horror Nights, spooky Halloween events put on annually by the studio. She ended up becoming hair department head for Halloween Horror Nights.

Fast forward to today and Salazar’s film and television credits include “Jumanji: The Next Level,” “Maggie” and “With Love” along with “Everything Everywhere All At Once” and “The Santa Clauses.” “With Love” and “Ugly Betty” actor Mark Indelicato stars in Tecuane’s campaign video. Prior to “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” Salazar was hair department head on 2016’s “Swiss Army Man,” another movie from “Everything Everywhere All At Once” directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert.

Salazar is particularly proud of “Everything Everywhere All At Once.” Behind the scenes, she says the energy was almost like a student film in that the people involved were “just kind of going balls to the wall.” She continues, “When I work with these other big studios and network TV, sometimes it feels like no one cares and is so rude and so mean…It’s been such a reward to see it [‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’] blossom and bloom and boom into this huge thing.”

Although Salazar is immersed in the hair world, being a brand founder is a new experience for her. “If you own a beauty brand, it’s completely different, and everybody knows each other, and it’s very close and very tight-knit,” she says. “It definitely has been a challenge that I don’t think I was mentally prepared for.”

Salazar participated in clean beauty retailer Credo’s accelerator program last year and was chosen as a finalist for the brand Tower 28’s Clean Beauty School this year. At Clean Beauty School, Maude founder Éva Goicochea is Salazar’s mentor. “I didn’t go to business school, I didn’t spend 10 years doing marketing with Estée Lauder, so it’s definitely been a great resource to have a network of people who are like-minded and also on the same path as you.”

The lack of Latinx beauty brand founders has been a wake-up call for Salazar. She was exposed to it before her brand when she was hair department head on “Love, Victor,” a 2020 Hulu show. Salazar was interested in promoting Latinx-owned brands as part of the show, but only discovered a few, the haircare brand Rizos Curls among them. Salazar says, “I don’t know if it’s because it seems like such a farfetched dream or we feel like we can’t be that standard because we don’t fit a certain demographic.”

Older Latino consumers feel as if they’re not the standard in the beauty industry, too. A 2019 AARP article details that, despite spending 84% more money and 38% more time on beauty and personal grooming daily compared to the general population of 50-plus consumers, more than six in 10 Latinos over the age of 50 years old would grade the beauty industry with a C or worse, and nearly four in 10 don’t believe the beauty industry creates products with people their age in mind.

Salazar attempted to counter the negative sentiments older Latino consumers have about the beauty industry by featuring her uncle, mother and step-grandfather in Tecuane’s campaign. Her grandfather was moved to tears by the gesture. Salazar recounts, “He was like, ‘I have no idea what you’re trying to do, I just sat here to pose for photos, but this is going to be amazing.’ I’m like, ‘You deserve to be in an ad, you’re beautiful, and you also spend money on gel and hair products.’”

Salazar invested $50,000 from her savings into launching Tecuane and estimates she’s earned back 90% of that investment in the past 11 months. She’s primarily relied on giveaways, micro-influencers, Instagram and TikTok advertising, and social proof to market Tecuane. Breaking into luxury retail is a long-term goal. Other goals are building out a team, expanding into styling products, and releasing a refill bottle and travel size for Esperanza Scalp Tonic.

Salazar recently worked on a Coach commercial and still caters to personal celebrity clients monthly for house calls. With the ongoing Writers Guild of America strike, she’s spent less time on set. One beneficial result of that is she can dedicate more time to Tecuane. She says, “Tecuane is more than just a haircare brand, it’s a movement towards mindful haircare that honors diversity and inclusivity. We’re excited to see where the next 11 months and beyond take us, and we’re grateful for the opportunity to help people in their haircare rituals.”