Between real estate meetings and property showings, Aziza El Wanni packed hair care orders in the back of her car. The products had started as kitchen experiments, with labels applied by hand and boxes assembled alongside her mother. Now they travelled with her through the workday in the United States, part creative outlet and part young company. Weekends meant markets, backyard events and pop-ups. Then Nordstrom came along, and what had felt like a demanding hobby became, in El Wanni's words, a "real business."
The expected next step was multiplication: more shelves, customers and products. The Potion Studio went the other way. It launched with four SKUs and kept those same four for almost five years. Scaling did not require an elaborate catalogue for every possible curl concern. It meant clearly defining the purpose of a compact range: potent, multifunctional hair care for textured hair, made for people who do not want 10 steps between the shower and the door.
It launched with four SKUs and kept those same four for almost five years.
That restraint runs through the company, from thick formulations and black-and-white packaging to its retail position and in-person curl consultations. "Less is more" can sound like an empty aesthetic slogan, especially in beauty, where minimalist packaging may conceal a routine that occupies half a bathroom shelf. At The Potion Studio, it is closer to product architecture. The question is not how little the company can sell, but how much customers can trust each product to do.
The Potion Studio began with hair experiments at home
El Wanni was around nine or 10 when she began making hair treatments with her Curaçaoan mother in Suriname. Their kitchen became a regular place for experimentation and companionship, with ingredients mixed for El Wanni's own dry hair rather than a hypothetical customer. She struggled to find products that were easy to use, simple, clean and effective. What began as time spent together became a weekly practice, driven by a problem she could see and feel rather than a market category waiting to be claimed.
Moving to Amsterdam changed the conditions around that problem. The weather, her hormones and her hair shifted, sending her back to ingredients and mixtures. Friends became informal testers and then regular visitors. El Wanni became the person to see when someone needed help with her hair. The pattern repeated after she moved to the United States in 2020. Unfamiliar water, weather and products changed how her hair responded, and she returned to the drawing board. A hair routine can be surprisingly dependent on place. A formula that behaves predictably in one country may feel entirely different in another, and El Wanni wanted products that could travel across climates, countries and curl textures, including on a plane.
By the time she approached a chemist, she did not have a polished commercial formula. She carried something more practical: years of specific preferences. She knew which ingredients and scents she liked, how potent the products needed to be, and why multifunctionality and ease mattered. Working with a Black woman chemist, she turned that accumulated knowledge into products intended to remain accessible and straightforward across textures. The kitchen experiments were more than a quaint prehistory to the "real" work of formulation. That was where El Wanni had set the standards.
Palestinian olive oil and Curaçaoan DIY rituals shaped the formulas
The Potion Studio's small product range is tied to El Wanni's Palestinian and Curaçaoan inheritance. On her mother's side, beauty care was practical and homemade. Her aunt used avocado and avocado oil for hot oil treatments, mashing ingredients together instead of treating every need as a reason to buy something new. On her father's side, olive oil provided another kind of continuity. El Wanni's Palestinian family once had an olive farm, and olive oil remained a multipurpose staple in family life: available, familiar and useful for seemingly everything.
Suriname gave the word "potions" its literal foundation. El Wanni remembers growing up among people from many cultures, with access to different mangoes, oils and other ingredients that could be combined into hair treatments. The name later puzzled her father, who worried that people would not know The Potion Studio sold hair care. But that openness was the point. "Potions" described the original act of combining whatever was at hand, while leaving room for a company that might eventually move beyond hair.
El Wanni carried that logic into college. When she did not have money for a new hair oil, she used olive oil from her mother, mixed it with conditioner and made a mask. The point is not nostalgia for a purer, homemade past. It is a rejection of the idea that every beauty problem demands another purchase. Inherited knowledge became product logic: use potent ingredients, keep the routine simple and make one product useful in more than one place, including hair, skin, body and beards.
It is a rejection of the idea that every beauty problem demands another purchase.
The same principle guides the company's expansion. El Wanni has described an upcoming product infused with olive oil, bringing a family staple directly into the range. She also sees The Potion Studio becoming a lifestyle brand rather than remaining confined to hair care. Expansion does not have to undo the original compactness. The company's future need not consist of an endless procession of narrowly differentiated bottles. Its name already leaves room for body care and other uses, as long as every addition earns its place through function.
Four products push back against the 10-step curl routine
El Wanni's criticism of hair care begins with a familiar instruction directed at women of color: transformation requires labor. To create a curl, they are told to use 10 products, styling tools and detailed techniques. To produce straight hair that appears accepted, the demand becomes another 10 steps, this time with substantial heat. Even the phrase "natural hair journey" can make wearing one's own texture sound like a technical undertaking that must be studied, purchased and perfected.
The Potion Studio launched with four SKUs and kept those same four for almost five years. A small launch assortment can be temporary, something a young company leaves behind as soon as it can afford to manufacture more. Here, restraint became the operating model. El Wanni calls herself a "lazy natural," someone without the time or patience for a 10-step curl routine who wants to finish in the shower, get out and go. The phrase is playful, but the product requirement is demanding. A smaller range works only if every formula does more.
El Wanni's criticism of clean hair care is equally specific. A product may be clean, sustainable, recyclable or vegan and still fail textured hair. She repeatedly encountered clean formulations made for fine hair or other textures, leaving her own hair without enough moisture because the products were not rich enough or had been heavily diluted with water. "Less is more" cannot mean thin formulas and poor performance. The alternative must be potent and thick, easy to apply and able to work across textures without forcing customers to compensate with gel, foam, a special brush or finger coiling.
Consider the cleanser. El Wanni rejects the blanket claim that hair cannot be washed regularly. In her view, a healthy scalp begins with proper cleansing. But the cleanser must not leave hair squeaky or dry, so hers is infused with aloe vera and cucumber and can also be used on the body. Another moisturizer combines Manoy oil, mango butter and shea butter for both hair and skin. This is not minimalism through deprivation. A compact routine still has to account for moisture, cleansing and the practical needs of textured hair.
Nordstrom required a clearer niche, not a different brand
Before major retail, The Potion Studio grew through proximity. El Wanni worked in real estate while packing orders from her car between meetings and showings. On weekends, she went to markets, community events, backyard gatherings and pop-ups, placing the products directly into customers' hands. She could explain how little to use, where else to apply a formula, and why a product labelled for wavy or curly hair might also work on the body or beard. The compact range made sense when El Wanni could stand beside it.
Nordstrom arrived after The Potion Studio had been operating for about two and a half years. The opportunity forced El Wanni to put on what she calls her founder and business-owner hat. Retail brought unfamiliar terminology, financing questions and decisions about what the company might look like years later, all without an established internal staff to handle the pressure. The brand remained a family business: El Wanni, her father, a small social team, a product developer and contractors. Her father managed some financing along with EDI and technical work, while El Wanni learned what she did not yet know.
Retail did not require a new formula or a larger range. It required sharper language. El Wanni concluded that she had not been niche enough and needed to say plainly that The Potion Studio was a textured hair brand. That description made the products easier to place without restricting who could use them. Nordstrom did not need The Potion Studio to become a different company. It needed the company to identify the shelf problem it solved.
Retail did not require a new formula or a larger range. It required sharper language.
The packaging had already laid the groundwork. El Wanni chose black and white from the beginning, seeking a clean luxury look that would sit neatly on a vanity while remaining approachable to women and men. In curly hair aisles, she found the bright colors, intense claims and repeated references to coconut or curls overwhelming, even when she generally knew what she needed. The Potion Studio made a quieter case. Textured hair care did not need crowded design to communicate its purpose.
Retail costs extend well beyond the inventory on a shelf. Trips cost money, as do events and every goodie bag. El Wanni continued bootstrapping instead of immediately hiring a full-time staff, relying on trusted contractors and a product developer who stayed with her. That structure follows the same discipline as the four-product range. The company does not create a permanent role simply because a task exists, just as it does not add a bottle whenever someone names another hair concern.
In-person curl consultations turn customers into a community
There is an irony in El Wanni becoming the face of a beauty company: she is deeply private. She did not have a public Instagram until about five years ago. When a photographer asked why she remained so hidden while launching hair care, her answer exposed the risk she associated with founder visibility. What if people did not like the products? She feared being personally responsible for their disappointment. Yet campaign photography and hired talent required budgets she did not have, while customers wanted to know where the formulas came from. Practical necessity brought her into view.
Visibility gradually became more than a substitute for advertising. At pop-ups, El Wanni could offer one-on-one curl consultations, answer questions and step into the affectionate role someone gave her: a "hairy godmother." The title suits a company called The Potion Studio, making her expertise feel intimate rather than clinical. Customers do not encounter only a texture chart or quiz. They meet someone who has spent years adjusting her routines across Suriname, Amsterdam and the United States, and who understands why people may not know where to start.
The effect of those early encounters is still visible. Customers approach El Wanni to say they first bought Rose Bomb at a downtown event in 2022 and now purchase it at Nordstrom. That continuity says more than a burst of online attention. A pop-up sale became a routine, and a product discovered in person remained useful after the brand reached a major retailer's shelves. The customer did not need a constant stream of launches to stay interested. She needed one product that kept working.
El Wanni wants the company's next phase to include more gatherings, collaborations with Middle Eastern-owned brands, Nordstrom masterclasses and potion-making sessions. At previous sessions, people formulated oils, assembled custom boxes, touched the products and stayed to ask questions. These are not standard pop-ups built around a quick purchase and departure. They bring the original kitchen-table experience into public: people gather around ingredients, experimentation and conversation.
This also explains El Wanni's unconventional view of ROI. The return extends beyond the money collected that day. It may be a new relationship with someone who stays, feels the formula, discusses her hair and continues using the product for years. Beauty companies often depend on customers reaching for the next bottle. The Potion Studio takes a different approach. Its retail strategy rests on four products and the belief that clarity, potency and direct contact can create more lasting value than abundance. The strongest reason to buy less may be finding something that does not need to be replaced.