North Authentic is your destination for personal expert-recommended chemical free, sustainable (“conscious”) hair products. Our curated collection of hair care products, chosen carefully from around the globe, that are high performing and free of chemical or toxic ingredients listed in our Barred Ingredient List (a list of ingredients that we have identified as toxic-offenders in the hair care and beauty industry).

To support our customers in every hair care purchase, North Authentic’s focuses on four primary principles.

Personal Expertly Recommended:

We developed our thorough and comprehensive North Authentic Hair Quiz, where every customer can share personal information, like their hair type, hair concerns, styling goals, etc., to receive a personal expert-recommended hair care regimen. Through testing by our hair care experts, ingredient of concern identification, customer and focus group feedback, we are able to recommend the best hair care products so that no woman or man ever makes another investment in the wrong hair product. 

High Performance:

Every product we carry is used and tested by our Founder, hair care experts, customers and focus groups to identify the hair type, hair concern and hair goal to which they perform at their best. We understand that the transition to conscious products could be a big decision, so we want to support that move in the easiest, positive way. If the product doesn’t perform, our customer will not be committed to the change. Plus, why purchase a product if it doesn’t work? Every product sold on ShopNorthAuthentic.com is not only clean, but performs.

Goal Defined:

We do not take words on the bottle at face value, but test, as well as clearly identify with our shopping filters and brand badges, where each product performs most optimally so that every customer can find the precise product she or he needs for what they are trying to achieve...quickly and easily. 

Steadfastly Conscious:

Our commitment to chemical-free, sustainable, safe hair care products far exceeds industry norms. Every product’s ingredients are vetted against our Barred Ingredient List to ensure it is conscious before it hits ShopNorthAuthentic.com. This means that we can carry certain products from one brand, but not others. Every single product, not just the brand, is chosen carefully as we are relentless in our endeavors to deliver only conscious hair products to our customers.

The beauty industry is built of thousands of beauty brands, most of which still use low-cost toxic ingredients regardless of the celebrity name attached to it or the price tag. Recently, multiple small independent beauty brands have popped up committed to clean beauty which includes educating consumers on the dangers of these toxic ingredients and formulating products that are truly clean. We love that this movement is gaining traction; however, it has focused primarily on skin care. 

The scalp is actually one of the most absorbent areas of skin on your body. Even more than your arms. This means that your scalp operates like a sponge, absorbing everything that you put on it. Due to this, we feel it is imperative to advocate for healthier haircare for ourselves and our consumers. There are a handful of companies that are truly free of toxic chemicals, so North Authentic is doing the legwork to locate, bring on, test and support those brands in making their way to you. 

A small business with a global mindset.

Although we’re a small business, we strongly believe in the power and global impact one individual’s choices can make. From our Southern California location to our brand partners, we believe in making conscious decisions in every step of the supply chain. From the ingredients in every product to how the packaging is produced as well as its long-term effects on the environment, we believe in being thoughtful about both the people and the planet before, during, and after production. 

From our Barred Ingredient List to our performance testing with pro hair stylists, customers, and focus groups, we are committed to bringing you a trusted space for finding chemical free, eco-friendly hair care products that work! We want to ensure that no woman or man ever makes another wasted investment on the wrong hair product and never has to compromise her/his health, the health of their families or the planet to feel beautiful.

We source global and independent hair care brands committed to clean ingredients and sustainability, like Cult and King (Utah based chemical free, sustainably packaged hair products), Oway (Italy based organic hair care packaged in zero-waste amber glass bottles), Davines (Italy based zero-carbon footprint natural hair care) and Innersense (curly hair focused organic hair care) to name a few, vet them against our Barred Ingredient list and test for performance before any product hits ShopNorthAuthentic.com. Read more about our Approval Process.

By late 2019, my hair salon, North Salon, had already been transformed into as clean as a salon as I knew of at that time. In the three years prior, I had witnessed a large proportion of my guests, friends and family becoming sick with autoimmune diseases and thyroid issues. In January of 2019, I was also diagnosed with Hashimotos...a disease I only heard of briefly 6 years ago that now seems to be a standard-issue among the population. This made me dig even deeper...Why is everyone getting sick? What is different? This led me toward eliminating toxins from anywhere in my life that I could. 

The more areas of my home and salon that I tried to eliminate toxins from, the more I realized how many toxic chemicals were in everything we use on our skin, hair, dishes, furniture, everywhere. It was shocking. In order to truly eliminate toxins and get a handle on my health, I had to make major changes in everything I did, and everything I purchased. 

A large part of my success behind the chair was how much knowledge I constantly accumulated and passed on to my clients. I focused on the chemistry of hair and why it behaves the way it does so that I could have an educated conversation with my clients and put them on the best path for their haircare. If a client wanted to achieve a specific hair color, I see coaching her on how to achieve and maintain that hair color as one of the most important parts of my job. Because if she wasn’t caring for her hair properly at home...that color and cut would only look so good for so long. 

Time and time again, new clients would be astounded by the consultations I gave and the knowledge I had. They shared that they had never had a stylist give such a thorough hair consultation or prescribe a hair care regimen. One client, Kim, said she had asked each of her last three stylists what she should be using at home and they all told her that at-home hair care products didn’t matter! What!?? 

If people learn nothing else from me...it’s that how you care for your hair, before and after color and cut services, is as important as the care instructions in an expensive cashmere sweater. If you didn’t know how to take care of that sweater, you would likely ruin it in that first wash. How you care for your hair and what you use on it has everything to do with its resulting condition and on what color and style you can achieve. 

Each client left my chair armed with her own personal North Authentic Hair Care Roadmap, similar to a prescription, where I listed the shampoo, conditioner, treatments and styling products she needed to do to achieve or maintain her hair goals as well as how to use each. 

Following the shutdowns, I realized I had the time to create a web platform where I could support women and men all over the world with the same recommended hair care regimens that I had been giving to my personal clients. I built North Authentic’s mission around three major pitfalls in the hair care industry:

1. Women and men are shopping for hair care products with little knowledge of what to buy. Only 3% of hairstylists discuss products with their clients. This shocking number means most women blindly walk into big box stores and purchase products because they like the bottle or the smell. Both of which have nothing to do with how that product is going to perform or if it is the right product for your hair type, concern, texture, etc. 

2. Cosmetic retailers invest millions of dollars each year in beauty counter reps for skin care and makeup products to walk you through finding that perfect lip gloss or foundation, but hair care products are still just lonely bottles on a shelf. When women are seeking analysis or consultations on what hair products to invest in, they are and feel deserted.

3. The haircare industry has been nominally touched by the clean beauty movement. Most “clean beauty” retailers will have some hair products, but the choices are few and like a forgotten step child. Considering most hair products include toxic ingredients and endocrine disruptors and the scalp is one of the most absorbent parts of your skin (like a literal sponge for whatever you place it) this is a major miss. There are few indie brands that are dedicated to 100% non-toxic, eco-friendly hair products (Innersense, Cult and King, Evolvh and Reverie) as well as those working hard to get there and we have them at North! I am continuously searching for clean beauty brands so we have as many amazing products to choose from as possible. Honestly, they are hard to find, but more are popping up as time goes on. Yay!

I feel blessed to have friends, family, clients that have become best friends, staff and advisors that believe in me and are invested in helping me achieve my dream of supporting as many people as possible in finding the right hair care products for them.

XO,

Natalie Palomino