How Becoming A Mom Prompted Miribel Naturals Founder Jackie Gil Serchuk To Overhaul Her Haircare Brand

When Jackie Gil Serchuk named her curly hair brand My Soigne in 2018, it was for practical as well as emotional reasons.

On the practical side, in scouring the internet for curly hair-related possibilities, it seemed like they’d been completely taken, and My Soigne was conveniently available. On the emotional side, she adored the way the word “soigné,” meaning well-groomed or elegant in French, encapsulated what she wanted her brand to express about curly hair. “I was always told my hair was really fluffy or really wild and that I looked like a crazy person,” she says. “‘Soigné’ was a way to take back the fact that curly hair is all good things. It’s not bad hair, which is what a lot of us were told growing up.”

By 2019, the name didn’t make as much sense to Gil Serchuk, again for practical and emotional reasons. Practically, she learned that Baltimore-based My Soigne’s American customers often couldn’t pronounce or spell “soigné.” If they couldn’t spell it, they couldn’t search for it online. Emotionally, Gil Serchuk, a new mother, was confronting an altered hair reality: Her texture shifted from big and curly to fine and wavy while she was breastfeeding her daughter—and her daughter had straight hair.

Miribel Naturals founder Jackie Gil Serchuk

“How was my daughter going to feel if I was telling her curly hair was elegant, and she felt she couldn’t be a part of the brand or use its products? I didn’t want her to have to go through the long self-love journey I went through,” she says, adding, “I didn’t realize how exclusive I was being with my message. I felt I couldn’t fit my own brand anymore. Feeling that way made it really hard for me to do anything with it because I have to love something and be really passionate about it to make it work. So, it was a struggle.”

After a renovations process that stretched over a year and a half, My Soigne transformed into Miribel Naturals in October 2021 to put all the pieces together both emotionally and practically. The name is a play on Gil Serchuk’s daughter’s first and middle name, and underscores the brand’s incorporation of natural ingredients. Miribel Naturals’ products are reminiscent of do-it-yourself products people with curly hair whip up at home, but shelf-stable, user-friendly, perfected versions.

“We are trying to be less like we are a curly hair brand more like we are a healthy hair brand,” says Gil Serchuk. “No matter your texture, if your hair is healthy, it will look good naturally, and there’s a higher chance you are going to love it in its natural state.”

In addition to the name change, Gil Serchuk changed the design and packaging. Previously, My Soigne had stuck to straightforward design and packaging. “We had clear jars and labels. There was nothing frilly about it,” says Gil Serchuk. “The hair cream was just Hair Cream. The flaxseed gel was just Flaxseed Gel. We were a simple brand trying to encourage simple ingredients and simple routines.”

“No matter your texture, if your hair is healthy, it will look good naturally, and there’s a higher chance you are going to love it in its natural state.”

Miribel Naturals hasn’t vanquished the simple ingredients and routines, but has pumped up the joy factor in its branding. A graphic designer by training, Gil Serchuk spiffed up the color palette with orange, purple, green and red, and gave Miribel Naturals a retro 1970s vibe. Its products are now housed in squeeze tubes and called Silky Smooth Flaxseed Gel, Dreamy Hair Cream, Creamy Hair Cleanser and Powerhouse Protein Cream. “I just want people to have fun with their hair,” says Gil Serchuk.

Silky Smooth Flaxseed Gel is Miribel Naturals’ runaway bestseller. An alternative to messy flaxseed oil DIY products, it helped turn the brand, then My Soigne, from Gil Serchuk’s side hustle (she was an international services advisor at John Hopkins University) to her full-time gig. After it came out in July 2018, My Soigne went from selling an occasional product to 20 orders in a week—and Gil Serchuk built the brand from there, primarily via organic word of mouth boosted by social media. Next year, it’s targeting a seven-figure sales total.

Not bad for a company that originally started from an around $2,000 investment Gil Serchuk made in microfiber towels to sell on Amazon. She wasn’t interested in her business only being an Amazon product, though. She was interested in creating a brand. To create a brand, she scrounged up a few thousand more to buy ingredients for the development of the hair cream and hair cleanser. They hit the market in March 2018, shortly before the flaxseed gel.

Gil Serchuk initially concocted the products in her kitchen and has been slowly moving the business out of her house. By August 2019, she began outsourcing manufacturing to a lab and, recently, she outsourced fulfillment, too. To pay for the fulfillment house and have room to grow wholesale operations, Miribel Naturals increased its prices in March. Silky Smooth Flaxseed Gel was bumped up the most, from $18 to $24. Across the brand’s products, prices range from $24 to $28 for 8-oz. sizes.

Priced from $24 to $28 for 8-oz. sizes, Miribel Naturals products are Dreamy Hair Cream, Creamy Hair Cleanser, Powerhouse Protein Cream and bestseller Silky Smooth Flaxseed Gel.

The brand has been available at a few curly hair e-tailers, shops and salons. To grow wholesale operations, Gil Serchuk’s goal is to place it in clean beauty retailers and, eventually, in large beauty retailers like Ulta Beauty and Sephora. “Since I don’t have financing—I don’t have any VC investors—I worry about how I would finance getting on the shelves of Sephora or Ulta,” she admits, continuing, “If people walk into a Sephora or Ulta, there’s a trust between them and the store. Someone who saw My Soigne or who sees Miribel Naturals, there isn’t that much trust there, so people build their trust with me. I have made myself the face of the brand. They see my face and know that I use my products and my family uses my products.”

For the moment, finishing up two products is a focus for Gil Serchuk. She plans on releasing a hair foam and hard hold gel later this year. “Our customers are in their 30s and 40s with 3A to 3C hair. It’s definitely not the gen Z crowd,” says 32-year-old Gil Serchuk. “It’s super relatable to talk to these other women who are in similar points in their lives as me. I’m hoping that, as we offer hair foam and hard hold gel and other products I’m working on, we will expand to reach out to more people with different hair types.”

Certainly, Miribel Naturals will fit Gil Serchuk, whose hair texture has reverted to its pre-baby form, and whatever hair type she might have in the future. “With another pregnancy or when it changes to silver or gray, it’s going to change texture. This journey is not linear, no journey is. I want to be OK with how it winds up being because I’m OK being who I am,” she says. “It’s not all about me and my hair. It’s about the wider audience and different hair needs and making sure we take that all into consideration.”