What if the best way to scale your movement is to reject the platform that promises the most reach?

Kate Assaraf built Dip, a plastic-free haircare brand that's redirected $5M to independent retailers, all while refusing Amazon, influencers, and paid ads. With 20 years of beauty industry experience and a contract manufacturer bankruptcy that nearly destroyed her, Kate made the "crazy" decision to build her own factory in North Carolina. Now she works with 4,000-5,000 zero waste stores, salons, and surf shops across the country, and for some of them, Dip literally pays their rent.

This conversation with Serena and Sara goes into the turning points that shaped Kate's approach. From discovering the plastic crisis while pregnant 11 years ago to testing her conditioner bar with 400+ people before launch, Kate shares the unglamorous reality of building a sustainable business that actually sustains you. She talks about paying herself from day one, doing customer service for four years to understand every issue firsthand, and why she sends abandoned cart customers to a store locator instead of a discount code. You'll also hear about the competitor who copied her signature scent and the misleading blog tactics designed to hijack her organic search, and how Kate's focus on brand integrity over growth hacks continues to pay off.

What You'll Learn:

🧪 Why "eco-friendly without looking eco-friendly" matters — Kate's approach to marrying science and sustainability without compromising on performance or aesthetics

🏭 How a bankruptcy became the catalyst for vertical integration — The moment Kate's contract manufacturer went under with her deposit, and why she chose to build her own factory with displaced workers

💰 The first-week $30K launch strategy — How Kate sold five figures from her personal network alone, and why not burning bridges is the ultimate business asset

🛒 Wholesale loyalty over DTC convenience — Why Kate's abandoned cart emails send customers to local stores instead of offering discounts, and how this protects independent retailer margins

🎤 The karaoke bar pivot question — Kate's answer to what business she'd start if she had to do it all over again (spoiler: it involves private rooms and playlists)

Building a brand with integrity in an industry plagued by fake reviews and copycat competitors isn't easy. But Kate proves that when you center your values, your people, and your retailers, you can build something that scales the movement, not just the customer list. Serena and Sara bring out the humor, the grit, and the hard-won wisdom that makes this episode unmissable.

If her story moved you, share it with a woman who needs to hear it. Subscribe to Fearless & Flawed wherever you listen.

Serena Reynolds: And here's what gets me. She didn't start by shouting about sustainability or trying to guilt anyone into buying. She built something that actually works, proved it, and lets the product do the talking. Four and a half years in, and she knows her store owners by name.

Sara Ferrer: That's the kind of brand you simply can't fake.

Sara Ferrer: And I'm Sara, an email marketing pro here to convert clicks into cash. Together, Serena and I are two women in charge, digging into the fearless, the flawed, and the fabulous journeys of female founders rewriting the rules.

Serena Reynolds: So let's dive in.

Serena Reynolds: So welcome Kate. Welcome to our podcast.

Kate Assaraf: Hey. Thank you for having me, that's an exquisite intro, I appreciate it. It's almost out body listening to it, so thank you very much.

Serena Reynolds: And how did you come up with it and tell us all about it. Just tell us all about it. Let's start there at the beginning.

Kate Assaraf: Okay. In one Breath Dip is sustainable hair care, which means plastic-free hair care for people that are fed up with sustainability. That's really the nicest way to say it. So often people are, you know, trying to reduce their plastic and.

Kate Assaraf: I did not wanna look eco-friendly. Those are two very different things, so, so yeah, that's how Dip came around. It came out of frustration actually, of being a sustainable consumer for 10 years. And you know, knowing that from what I knew for 20 years in the beauty industry, I knew I could solve the problem and I knew I could do it in a way that got people excited about using bars instead of feeling like they have to.

Kate Assaraf: It was both. So, so I have been sustainable, I guess, reducing my plastic for at least 10 years, ever since I found out not only it was accumulating on the planet, but also because of, you know, the hormone disruption and the, you know, the endocrine disruption that was happening from, you know, plastic leaching into waterways.

Kate Assaraf: I don't know. It's, it's all a nightmare. I don't wanna go into that because it's scary and people are starting to know that now.

Sara Ferrer: We like scary.

Sara Ferrer: We like

Sara Ferrer: scary. We like scary. Go into it, girl. No, seriously. Go into it. Educate people.

Kate Assaraf: I mean. Honestly, like I read this book when I was pregnant with my first son 11 years ago.

Kate Assaraf: And then a little piece of it was a very short blip in the book was about plastic. And this, it kind of blew my mind because I was pregnant reading this and what they, what the author was saying was that, you know, someone was kind of tugging on his sleeve warning about plastic. Kind of blew it off and thought it was like a little annoying.

Kate Assaraf: But then he did a deep dive and saw that there was this there study where the plastic runoff from the, from our factory near the Potomac River, the plastic runoff was changing the bi biology so that the male fish started laying eggs. And to me that's like pretty shocking because my mom's an anthropologist and she taught evolution and that is a, should be a very slow, slow process to have.

Kate Assaraf: So to have these hormonal. Changes very quickly is, is something that is very scary.

Serena Reynolds: Okay. So I didn't know that.

Kate Assaraf: You know, wrecking our hormones, but now

Sara Ferrer: they're coming for us. They're coming for us. But they are, they actually are.

Kate Assaraf: Yeah. They, it's privately. I, I was making all those changes and I was talking to the moms around me, and I, you know, it, it, it starts to feel a little bit validating when you see that, you know, not validating in a good way.

Kate Assaraf: It's validating in the worst way to find out that microplastics are in, you know, all of our tissues, including our brain, and that is the result of. Everyone just being exposed to so much plastic in every facet of your lives, whether it's like active wear or whether it is, you know, takeout spoons or your own cutting board.

Kate Assaraf: Now it's, it's frightening. I normally don't take this path, but like, no frightening,

Sara Ferrer: actually, I think this is a great path. I think a lot of our listeners actually, I mean, I, I'm gonna speak for myself. I am someone who. I believe the science, I believe in what the research is showing, but it's hard for me to fathom that this would be allowed.

Sara Ferrer: Right? Like that's where my resistance has always been is like, but someone surely, surely at the higher ups, right, must say, oh my God, we must correct it until you read about the lobbyists and you read about the big corporate, you know, corporations and big money and how, and, and because I myself have a daughter now, um.

Kate Assaraf: Yeah, that was actually the most frightening thing. Is that.

Serena Reynolds: So here's, here's a question for you. I mean, I have my own take on this, but, um, so, so you said that. It was 11 years ago when you were pregnant with your first son, and Sara's just mentioned her, her beautiful little daughter. It's ama So for me it was amazing that shift of becoming a mother and then looking at the world in a completely different light.

Serena Reynolds: And I just wanted to, uh, just to like ask you both really, um, how that's, how that's changed for you, how that is for you.

Kate Assaraf: Start to perceive things and, and it comes with that change. And it comes either with that change or age, like you're gonna get to that point, like where you really start to recognize your own mortality and you're, and how you're not on this planet very long actually, and you're, you're lucky if you're here.

Kate Assaraf: 75 years even luckier. If you're here a hundred, that's just not a very long time. And so when you think about how old the earth is and how much longer you think it's gonna keep spinning, it really is our responsibility to notice this stuff and to consume less, whether it's, you know, plastic or just stuff in general.

Kate Assaraf: I kept buying shampoo bars and conditioner bars, and I was so angry they just ended up being like a tombstone or cemetery in, in my shower because I would try one and be like, Ugh, I try another one.

Kate Assaraf: And I just, I just was so frustrated and I knew that what I wanted was no plastic. I didn't want. I didn't need an all natural bar. What I wanted was a bar that works where there's no plastic involved. I wanted hair science. I knew the hair science and technology like there. I do not deny science in hair care.

Kate Assaraf: Like I, I, I want it in so much of my life. Like, I, I don't, I, I find it fascinating how many people are either like, so they're so polarized. They're either like. All synthetic or all, all natural people. And I think that there's a beautiful spot in between in the medium where things should and can exist.

Kate Assaraf: Music to my ears. So basically like eco-friendly, sustainable without being like the tree hugger type of persona. But there's already bars for that type of person. Like I. And that's fine. But for me, I was using a really expensive luxury conditioner, especially like it's so some people are like hair people, which, which is where I fall into.

Kate Assaraf: When I was living in Manhattan at one point, I had, I know I've had micro braids and extensions. I've had like literally every kind of hair I could think of. I've had it short, long. I don't, it's just, I just could love. Talk about hair and notice people's hair all the time. So it makes sense that that's really the avenue I chose.

Kate Assaraf: And the problem I really tried to solve was like, I was, it's embarrassing to say, but I was buying like, you know, Orbe hair stuffs pureology. I could easily spend 500 bucks a year on just conditioner, you know, so the Dip bar is $32 and really replaces a whole year of hair care for me.

Sara Ferrer: And And how did you

Serena Reynolds: One bar.

Sara Ferrer: One bar. Yeah. Girl, check out the website. I'm like, neat.

Kate Assaraf: So if you don't care about plastic, it solves the, the money problem.

Serena Reynolds: And, and lemme just say those that are listening to this, Kate has gorgeous hair. Gorgeous.

Kate Assaraf: Thank you.

Sara Ferrer: Gorgeous. It looks well conditioned.

Serena Reynolds: Shiny, healthy. It's beautiful.

Kate Assaraf: Thank you. I just, I love, I mean, I don't have a lot of hair, but I just love.

Kate Assaraf: I like love looking. If you see me, like, if you look over my shoulder and I'm on my phone by myself, I'm just looking at Pinterest hairstyles all the time.

Sara Ferrer: That is, but like how does, how does it go from like this, this need right, for yourself, for your child, your ethos. How does that go from that to seven employees and a in a factory?

Serena Reynolds: but first, first of all, modest four and a half years. Isn't it?

Kate Assaraf: It feels like a long time. It feels like I've been doing it forever, but, but yeah. The, you know, step one was I, because I've been in the beauty industry, I, I knew exactly what chemist I wanted to work with.

Kate Assaraf: I chose someone who had never made bars before. That was like very important to me. I chose someone who had. Like if you go into a Sephora or a salon, he has done a lot of, he is formulated a lot of the products that are on those shelves that are considered like some of the best. So I, I spoke with this chemist and I was like, I, this is the problem I wanna solve.

Kate Assaraf: I want it to be so that. If one family, like two parents with, with, you know, one with type one hair, one with type four hair, and they have four kids that all have different curl patterns. I wanted it to be that this one family, this poor mom can buy one set of products for the whole family.

Serena Reynolds: I, I, I have literally, my bathroom is, you know, the, the family bathroom is all these different hair care.

Kate Assaraf: That's a universal, there's so many families that just have bottles and bottles and bottles like, and then you have bottles of stuff that you kind of liked, but you're ready to like move on. So that sits there half empty. And so, I mean, I, that was my behavior too. And so I wanted to simplify the shower because once the sh the bars are out of the package, there's no real way to tell them apart.

Kate Assaraf: That was all the problems I tried to solve in

Sara Ferrer: one. How hard was that though? How? Because like, I think, you know, being, being in skincare myself, I was an esthetician for many years. You know, everyone always come. My clients would always say like, can you put the best of everything in one bottle? And the truth is with skincare, and I have to imagine with haircare, not all, you know, some, uh, some ingredients are afraid of water, some bind really well with water, and so it's like, no, the answer's no.

Sara Ferrer: You can't put. Vitamin C and vitamin A and sunscreen all in one. So when you're saying this concept of all hair types, all, all the no nasties taken out, that seems really fucking hard to do.

Kate Assaraf: It was really, really hard. But you know what? I didn't focus on what was in it. I only focused on the outcome. Do you know what I mean?

Kate Assaraf: Let me know we, and it wasn't until someone with the finest straightest hair and the person with the type four kinky Coily hair both said, this is awesome. That. We launched it. Like, and even then I was still scared to launch it because like, okay, I think it's amazing, but like, what's the actual market gonna think?

Kate Assaraf: And it was amazing to find out that, that the market responded really well to it. Thank God.

Sara Ferrer: How did you like, okay, so you send it out to 400 people. Like this is, and again, I, this is music to my ears. 'cause this is, I think a lot of people think, okay, you have an idea and you go straight to the factory, right?

Sara Ferrer: Um, shop small business. Did you go from, okay, we have something great, I'm producing it. I don't know by hand at home or I'm outsourcing it and I'm in small batches doing wholesale, like what was your next step to entering the market?

Kate Assaraf: Because I was an industry person, I wanted to make sure it was done right from the very beginning.

Kate Assaraf: So I had my contract manufacturer. I negotiated very, very low MOQs. I worked with them. And that's like, if anyone's starting a business, the best thing you can do is reduce your MOQs, um, for that first batch, you know? And, and so I was able to grow like the purchase orders. In a way that felt safe and manageable as an, as an entrepreneur.

Sara Ferrer: Wow. That's incredibly, for anyone listening, like minimum order quantity. Most places are like, all right, we'll run something for you. Minimum. Yeah, a thousand or even even a thousand can be low.

Sara Ferrer: I've dealt with some that are like 5,000, 10,000. 25. 10,000

Kate Assaraf: is genuine,

Sara Ferrer: right?

Kate Assaraf: Yeah.

Sara Ferrer: Right. So you negotiated well.

Kate Assaraf: Well, you're, you have to kind of have a little bit of clout and you have to have, you have to be like a little chockfull of audacity, right? Like you have to just go and be like, okay, I had to convince this team that I was working with like this.

Kate Assaraf: I am confident this is gonna work. I just need you to, you know, soften the financial blow in the beginning and as soon as I kind of get, get the gears going, I, I can promise you the purchase orders will be big, bigger and bigger and bigger. And so, you know, it got to the point where I was putting in a hundred thousand dollars purchase orders and huge unit quantities.

Sara Ferrer: Totally. You'll, you'll have enough haircare for three family generations.

Sara Ferrer: Um, they'll, they'll be like the great, great, great grandma Kate started this line, but like, so you, so the product wise, it sounds like, okay, you've got that down, you've got your contract manufacturer. How are you finding now people. Buy your product? Are we driving them to the website? I've mentioned that you've been big on like selling to mom and pop retailers, main street retailers.

Sara Ferrer: But how did you find those people?

Kate Assaraf: So the first, the first round of sales comes from people, you know? Right. And I was blown away. I posted with, within my own network, I posted that I was launching this and what it was, and I, this is where it serves you to not burn any bridges in your life ever. The first week we sold $30,000 worth of Dip, um, just from.

Kate Assaraf: I was so excited to like this. I made these bars and they're like. They're zero waste and they're amazing. And Deanna, who's the store owner, she brought them in immediately in her store and shouted them out. And then because of her putting it on her shelves, other zero waste stores. Inquired and then I started to send the bars out as samples to zero waste stores all over the country.

Kate Assaraf: And I would go to these places, you know, I would go to Virginia, Ohio. I, I literally go anywhere that wanted me to come to like, almost like trunk shows and. Talk to people about the bars and why they were different and what made them special, and that is how we grew it. We grew, I, I, I say we, the first 18 months it was me,

Kate Assaraf: and then

Kate Assaraf: what was really crazy is that I put in a huge order with my manufacturer.

Kate Assaraf: Like I was curled up in a ball. An order would come in and it went from like celebrating orders to just being like, like dry heaving. I was like, what am I gonna do?

Sara Ferrer: Yeah. What did you do?

Kate Assaraf: And I, so we had some inventory, so we kind of. You know, just worked our way. Like that inventory was our way, like our timeline.

Kate Assaraf: Like, I'll figure out where it's made and I'll just help myself.

Sara Ferrer: Totally.

Kate Assaraf: You know? Very common. So very common. I did the crazy thing and I started, uh, my own factory. So I took some of the displaced workers from the company that had been, was going under or went bankrupt and we, they actually found the building, got the equipment, and we.

Kate Assaraf: Started it up from scratch on our own vertically.

Sara Ferrer: Wow. So that is like, talk about triumph. 'cause many people would've been like, listen, it was a good run. I'm stressed out, I'm coughing up blood Like ain't this ain't, this ain't worth it. But you were like, okay. This sucks. I'm gonna figure this out. You put a little faith in the next, the next contract manufacturer, obviously it seems like because the product was good.

Sara Ferrer: I, I can't be a one woman show having literal trunk, trunk shows, you know, out of my car or whatever. You're doing it in stores or like, where were you? Like, maybe I need to do trade shows, or I need to get like a dedicated sales rep. What did that look like? Because I also just wanna say, your design and your packaging is exquisite.

Sara Ferrer: So it's clear to me that like, oh. There's a professional on, on brand. If it's not Kate, she's hired someone with an eye for design.

Kate Assaraf: Yeah. My poor husband is that person I hired for free. He's, he had also 20 years of beauty experience in packaging. So he can do all the things that I can't do, so I can do the marketing, the sales, you know, figure out the distribution.

Sara Ferrer: does he have great hair? Jonathan? I just need to know, does he have shiny hair like you?

Kate Assaraf: He does. Oh yeah, he, he used to have a lot more hair.

Sara Ferrer: Yes, it happens. With these It happens. Let him know it happens. And if he wants to shave it off and be bald, we'll love him just as much.

Sara Ferrer: Okay. We'll love him just as much. Yeah. But I imagine he's probably like, hell, I'll help you. I get free haircare for the rest of my life.

Kate Assaraf: Yeah. Well, I mean, it was, it was fun because we got to work on it together and, you know, so often we were doing beauty products, we're designing beauty branding for other people.

Kate Assaraf: And now this one, like the stakes were really high, like, and we were working together and really, really figuring out what we want it to look like, feel like, you know, he had also been using bar shampoo and conditioner forever, so he wanted to make sure that it was like the best of the best. So it was nice, but.

Kate Assaraf: And she used to sell a lot of Dip. She used to sell about $6,000 worth of Dick a month in her, just her store. And she, you know. Geographically had to like, move away from where her store was located. And I was like, I'll take you on my team. You're amazing. And so her name is Jackie, so she is now on the Dip team and she's the best.

Kate Assaraf: So Wow. And the warehouse team has grown. So for, for the first four years I did customer service on my own because I, it was very important to me as a business owner to know what was there and what. You know what the issues were. And then Are you still there?

Sara Ferrer: I'm still here, yeah. Sorry. Sorry. If anyone's watching my, I've just like blanked on the screen, but I am here baby girl.

Kate Assaraf: You figure it out as you go. And, and it's, I'm making it sound easy. It was not, sometimes it was like, okay, do I need to hire someone or should I just like do all this stuff myself?

Kate Assaraf: And more often than not, having someone dedicated to certain things like customer service was so much better than, than, you know, it was like carving out that budget for that, like helped sales, you know? So it's not just like, it's, it's not just having people like just start. Into the business. Everyone is so important and vital for their role and it's outgrown me is what I can do on my own.

Sara Ferrer: When did you know, what was the point when you're, when you were like. Okay. I, I can a afford to pay a team. I'm, I'm assuming your husband's full-time dedicat, full-time brand

Kate Assaraf: salaried were,

Sara Ferrer: Was that recent? Was that a couple years in and because again, the factory you own a factory in, in North Carolina, that ain't a small feat.

Kate Assaraf: Yeah. Well, I still lease the space, so it's not Well just say you own it. I'm not gonna fact check. I would say probably like we're profitable immediately. I paid myself immediately because I, A lot of mistakes that entrepreneurs make is not paying themselves.

Kate Assaraf: Like it's okay to have a little debt right in the beginning. It's okay to like, even if you're paying yourself like $2,000 a month. Do, you should do it because if you find every excuse to, to just let all your money go to all your bills, you're, you're suddenly now like a slave to your business instead of a business owner.

Kate Assaraf: But I, I was able to bring on like W2 employees, like real salaried employees. Um, yeah, 18 months in I was able to do that.

Sara Ferrer: And to date, how many wholesale customers 'cause you're very big. And I'd like you to speak a little bit about like giving back to the main street businesses, the mom and pops. Is that your bread and butter of the business?

Sara Ferrer: And how many pe are we talking? 500. A thousand. 5,000. 10,000. Give us the big numbers girl.

Kate Assaraf: Stores close and Main Street stores are closing. And it's one of the reasons that we run our business the way that we do. Um, and what I mean by that is, is we don't sell Dip on Amazon. We don't run crazy sales on our website. We keep, we protect our price so that our retailers can. Are able to sell. And so we, we make it so that if you abandon your cart, we send you the store locator.

Kate Assaraf: We're like, good, I'm glad you abandoned your cart. Like, go find Dip in your town. Go if you're, if you're nervous about purchasing it, like go and talk to your local zero waste store. Or go to your local surf shop or go to your local salon. Like we sell in those three places. And you know. In exchange is that they, a customer can go and have a human to human conversation about like, Hey, I'm nervous to buy Dip.

Kate Assaraf: So Dip pays their rent, and I make less money when someone buys something in a store, but that store is becomes like an educational hub about the product for that community. And that is like, I'm so grateful to these store owners and I do everything I can to protect them and protect their sales. Wow.

Kate Assaraf: Like they're basically your sales reps. They're my sales reps, and I know most of them personally at this point. 'cause I've just, I, I host events with my retailers. I check in on them. I, you know, like we're all kind of, especially the zero waste stores and the refillers, we're all kind of networked with each other.

Kate Assaraf: There's a, there's a comradery with zero waste. People, like we want, we want to see more people shopping in a zero waste store because say they go in for a Dip, um, they can also find the other vetted, sustainable solutions that don't leave you feeling disappointed. They, you can find all the stuff that is like really incredible.

Kate Assaraf: And that you don't have to worry about like being duped online by like really great reviews and a really disappointing product. Like that's my favorite thing about these zero waste stores. They have to invest in inventory. They curate it and make it amazing. And so you're not like at risk for shopping crappy, sustainable stuff, to be honest.

Sara Ferrer: Genius. It's.

Sara Ferrer: 49,999 are fake.

Kate Assaraf: You're fake. They're,

Kate Assaraf: a

Kate Assaraf: lot of it's crazy.

Sara Ferrer: They're, they're fake, fake. They're, they're

Serena Reynolds: just read the bad reviews. If they've only got five stars, don't touch them. Yeah. Read the bad reviews.

Kate Assaraf: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Serena Reynolds: And if you can live with whatever it is that the bad reviews says, then, then it's a good product.

Serena Reynolds: But that doesn't mean that it's bad products most of the time.

Serena Reynolds: It just means that nobody's reviewed it.

Kate Assaraf: Right, right. And and

Serena Reynolds: so that's really, I mean, it's so hard to get somebody to say, actually, I love this enough to write something down.

Kate Assaraf: I agree. I agree. It's super rare. I even my own behavior, it's really rare for me to write.

Serena Reynolds: Gimme something I hate and I'm, I'm all over it.

Serena Reynolds: Gimme something I don't love and, and I'm, I'm there writing my reviews, but something that I use and I love, I find that much harder to, uh, to, to be incentivized to, to write those reviews. Actually, actually,

Sara Ferrer: Which is giving back to the community, which is integrity and ingredients, which is passion, but it's also. Humility. It's also like when you were talking about the contract manufacturer going bankrupt, not saying, and then I figured it out the next day. It's like I was terrified, but, but that resilience and Serena has always really taught me that like, hey, it's not about, uh, always putting on, you know, the, everything's great face.

Sara Ferrer: Sometimes it's being in the trenches together, but knowing that your team has got you.

Kate Assaraf: Yeah. And I, the team is like. I probably would've collapsed a long time ago if I didn't have the great team. You know, the team is what makes the job fun and, you know, using, not using is the wrong word, but having the retailers.

Kate Assaraf: And so it feels like our workforce or our team is even bigger because of the zero waste stores and the, and the stylists also that, that are trying, you know, there's a lot of stylists out there that are like horrified with the waste in the salon industry. And so they bring Dip in just for that. Or even because it's a bad economy, like right, right now they can't sell 12 tubes of something pricey.

Kate Assaraf: They'd rather sell one Dip bar and then, you know, be like, Hey, you can save 500 bucks with this one conditioner bar that will get you in the chair to do your roots three times this year. You know? So that's a lot of girl math there, but that is how a lot of us think. That's how I think, anyway.

Sara Ferrer: I was following, I was like, yes, get me in that chair.

Kate Assaraf: Yeah, but imagine if you, if you weren't like, kind of a sleeve to buying this pricey haircare anymore, and it just lasts a long time in your shower. Like for some people the, the Dip conditioner bar can last like two years, which is crazy.

Kate Assaraf: But like, you know that that's a huge savings for someone.

Sara Ferrer: Wow. I am going to put the, the, the, the, I'm gonna test this out 'cause in our pre-chat you had mentioned that I live in, in Connecticut and there is a retailer right next to where, where my parents' house is and you know, I. I love the integrity of the messaging and it, I think that, you know, when you are selling something to get people to feel compelled to shop online is one thing, but compelled to drive somewhere is a whole other level of commitment.

Sara Ferrer: You'd be, because it's good for your hair type. It's gonna save you money key. And I think that it, it shows in the way you present it instead of like, you need it, you need it, you need it, you need it, you need it. The other, the other, the other things suck like this, this. It's, it's, it's, it's selling, but it's not selling because you believe in it.

Sara Ferrer: And so it's a natural influence in that a true influencer is someone who lives life in a way that they feel aligned with, not by me, buy me, buy me. And

Serena Reynolds: I can't to speak to Kate.

Sara Ferrer: Yes, exactly.

Serena Reynolds: And when I see a bar, I'm, I'm gonna be completely transparent here. If I was to see a bar and it's, you know, 12 months worth of shampoo, I'd be like, Hmm, okay. Really good and healthy for your hair, amazing glossy hair at the end of it. Okay. I'm not sure I'm gonna believe that, you know. And, and I do, I push back.

Serena Reynolds: How? How do you get over that? How do I mean, do you.

Kate Assaraf: So we, I mean, to be honest, yeah, because I was that person too. I was like, I'm never touching another bar again. I was so angry. So I, I am that person. So it's, it's really, I speak that language. I, I'm gonna, I'm ask, I'm gonna ask a really stupid question here.

Serena Reynolds: I do. Rubbing something hard on my scalp has like,

Kate Assaraf: yeah, well, it's not, you don't need to press down.

Kate Assaraf: You actually have it like sitting on top and you go really, really fast and it'll like explode With lather, you put the bar down and then you just kind of, it's. It's incredible, to be honest. I love it because, because every other bar I had tried before, you needed to press down and when you have to press down, like, you know, during COVID I lost a lot of hair.

Kate Assaraf: So like, you know, that was like one of the problems with COVID, like made people lose. Now people are on GLP 1's, right? You're, they're losing hair left and right and so. The, like, protecting every strand is very important to me anyway, and probably to a lot of people. So pushing down with a bar on my, on my head was like a deal breaker for me.

Kate Assaraf: You kind of paint it on your hair and you just, you'll feel it is so luxurious, the conditioning agent in it that your hair will feel like extra slick and extra slippery. And we've only had one person ever say, I don't like. How conditioning this is, it feels like my hair is like mush and I know exactly what that person's talking about because if you're used to using like a lower grade conditioner, you, you kind of can, your hair is not that slick, and so it's even so strong that it's an after swim detangler.

Kate Assaraf: So basically you Dip the bar, you can Dip it in water and run it down wet hair. It'll instantly detangle it, and then you can air dry and go onto your next thing.

Serena Reynolds: I had to cut it. I could not, I could not get my hair out. You needed Dip. You needed Dip. Serena, when did this happen?

Sara Ferrer: When did this happen? When did this happen, Serena?

Serena Reynolds: Oh, this happened? It happened. It happened. Pre me knowing you was Oh,

Sara Ferrer: okay. Because I was like, I don't remember.

Serena Reynolds: Yeah. Honestly, I had to cut my hair.

Kate Assaraf: That's crazy.

Serena Reynolds: It was the most horrendous scene. I, I was seen that went out and bought coconut oil and everything. Did not unlock my hair. It was a really messy bun. I was, I was gonna live with it forever.

Kate Assaraf: Before you go in the water anywhere. Beach pool, you should get your hair wet with, with fresh water first.

Kate Assaraf: Then it doesn't absorb anything from the water.

Serena Reynolds: So yeah, so that, yeah. Condition bar sounds amazing right now.

Sara Ferrer: I'm traumatized from that story. Serena, I've known you for this long and you've never mentioned your wild ass story about having to cut into your bun after a swim. I know, right. Girl. Girl, you need Dip. Well, you can, to be fair, you can get the lifetime supply of Dip on the website.

Sara Ferrer: Cool. Come and collected, like we're gonna go to the beach. But we're not the type of people that are gonna have like the whole set. Like we'll have enough and we're gonna have fun, but we're not gonna be like the people who have like the 400 trolleys that we're gonna bring to the beach. This is not the rich, this is the beach.

Sara Ferrer: We're gonna do this.

Serena Reynolds: We want. Yeah. I mean, I mean this conversation.

Serena Reynolds: Your demographics, honestly, I mean, we've had enough conversations about like skincare, haircare, um, sustainability, ethos, all of those things to know that, you know, you are our kind of gal, to be honest.

Kate Assaraf: Yeah. Like what I mean, I feel that too. It's just because it's. It's not just being sustainable. It's like, it's like this other layer that often gets overlooked.

Kate Assaraf: Like, okay, what else is in here? Maybe I have like the replacement, the, the Swedish dish cloth that replaced. Paper towels, paper towel, you know, towel. Maybe I can get a stacher bag that replaces Ziplocs. Like maybe I can get these other things and like maybe I'm gonna refill my laundry detergent instead of getting a whole big bulky plastic jug next time.

Kate Assaraf: So I mean, like that was the idea and that's why, you know, that I wanted to scale the movement, not just the customer list.

Serena Reynolds: You start, I mean, how ridiculous. That paper costs so much more money than plastic. When you, when you're packaging. When you're looking at packaging. Why, why is it so hard to be sustainable and profitable and, you know, try and run a business like that? It's, it's just not easy

Kate Assaraf: now. It's not easy at all, and I have so many competitors and so many of our competitors kind of do some dirty marketing tactics like.

Kate Assaraf: Like I have one competitive brand that's like, what they're doing is they've put out like four or five blogs to, they're not mean blogs about Dip, they're kind of factually incorrect. But what they're trying to do is main chat GPT to take people away from our organic search over to their website. Um, that called, by the way, so.

Kate Assaraf: another brand.

Kate Assaraf: We've had a cent called Rosewater Jasmine for four years, since the very beginning.

Kate Assaraf: A competitor just launched Rosie Jasmine in the same color box. So they're also trying to take. Traffic away and traffic, you know, it's fine. Like if you, I, I think consumers don't like that. So I, for me, like this is the first time I've really mentioned it in this, in a forum like this. But, but my retailers don't like it.

Kate Assaraf: They see it and they're like, okay, I'll never carry that brand now. So in that way, like. The, the, the network that Dip has built is like very, very strong and loyal, and I'm loyal back to the stores. And so it's not something that someone stealing organic traffic is really going to destroy, you know? And I would think I would be pissed if I went to shop for something and I got, and I was looking specifically for a product and I got to a competitor's website.

Sara Ferrer: I'm totally aligned on that. Like screw the people. Screw the people who are trying to knock you off. Say the names. Say the names. It's dirty.

Kate Assaraf: Well, I tried to contact them on LinkedIn and be like, can you like, what's going on with this?

Kate Assaraf: You know, and no one ever got back to me. So I've given them probably like four months solid chance to, to remedy it. And like, I don't know why you need to run your business this way. If your, if your product was so great, people should find it on its own and be looking for you.

Sara Ferrer: 100%. You know what they say?

Sara Ferrer: They say imitation is the greatest form of flattery. But at the same time, it's annoying in a business when you're like, please stop doing this.

Kate Assaraf: It's annoying in every facet. Like if I had someone showing up in the same denim shirt, like follow me around everywhere, I'd be so annoyed. Like, like it's, I don't think, I think in business it's annoying and like a personal life.

Kate Assaraf: It's annoying.

Sara Ferrer: It's called stalking. It's a misdemeanor.

Kate Assaraf: I dunno.

Sara Ferrer: Sometimes a felony.

Sara Ferrer: was an obsessed ex.

Kate Assaraf: Yeah. They were like an obsessed person. It's like, oh no, this is flattery. It's not me being weird. You're like, no.

Serena Reynolds: Yeah,

Kate Assaraf: it's weird

Sara Ferrer: Now, Kate. As we kind of conclude this marvelous journey that you've had, we like to throw a little curve ball at you. A happy curve ball. Okay. After all the curve balls you've had, um. This is easy, right? Um, Serena has a question from a previous guest. She doesn't know who, she didn't know who you were, what industry you work in, but she wants, our previous guest wants to ask you a question based on her experience.

Sara Ferrer: So, Serena, what is that question, baby? Girl,

Serena Reynolds: if you had to start over. From scratch. What business would you do instead? Would you be doing something different or would it be the same?

Kate Assaraf: I would open a local private room karaoke bar. That's what I would do.

Serena Reynolds: Really,

Kate Assaraf: But I love private room karaoke in St. Mark's in New York City, and I would love to do that here, so I don't have to trek into the city to do to do it. That's what I would do. I would create Awesome.

Serena Reynolds: I'm I'm totally and utterly blown away by that answer.

Kate Assaraf: That's what I would.

Serena Reynolds: If you were gonna say no, I would do exactly this.

Kate Assaraf: No, I would do private room karaoke locally in my town and I would, I would love to hear people singing like, you know, like it would be all soundproofed, but then you open the door and there's someone singing their face off with their friends. That's

Sara Ferrer: awesome answer. Awesome answer.

Kate Assaraf: Yeah. I mean, I, I think about it all the time.

Kate Assaraf: I'm like, I wish there was private room karaoke around here. You know?

Sara Ferrer: Now, what would you, what would you ask the next guest we have? You have no idea who they are, what, what, what industry they work in. What do you wanna ask? And it can be anything. It can be super random, it could be hair specific, it could just be ethos related, whatever you want.

Kate Assaraf: Okay. What music do you listen to when you're going through it with your business?

Kate Assaraf: What, what band, what genre? Like what are you listening to?

Sara Ferrer: I love it. Serena, what do you listen to when you're going through

Sara Ferrer: it?

Serena Reynolds: Oh, it's gotta be hard and heavy. It's gotta be like, yeah, I

Sara Ferrer: love that. Like, like classic though, or like new age hard and like,

Serena Reynolds: no, no, I'm talking like. Guitars and drums. I'm talking real instruments and screaming.

Serena Reynolds: That's great. That's, yeah. A little bit of that going on in the background just to burn off the energy. Yes.

Sara Ferrer: Damn. That's amazing.

Sara Ferrer: I, I have to ask you, Kate, because what, what, what do you listen to when like, you know, things are getting, things are getting rough?

Kate Assaraf: I go, I go soft. So I listen to the band Interpol, like, 'cause it, I can like think when it's playing, you know? And. But I, I do love a good Korn mo moment, or like,

Sara Ferrer: thank you. I, Kate, I felt like you would understand that.

Sara Ferrer: I felt like, you know, if it was someone else besides you, I wouldn't mention Korn, but like back in the day, a little grunge rock, you know.

Serena Reynolds: Sara, what about you? Do you know? Do you know what we have no idea about? I have no idea what her taste in music is. He's a little bit like home.

Sara Ferrer: I'm all over the place, girl.

Kate Assaraf: I'm frozen that time period.

Serena Reynolds: Okay, so what, what were we listening to, ladies? What was that?

Sara Ferrer: There was a band. There is a band, I don't know if they're still around, called Korn, KORN. And that was what kind of like, yeah,

Serena Reynolds: yeah, yeah.

Sara Ferrer: Okay. The emo kids listen to, I wasn't emo, but like

Serena Reynolds: what kids listen to. I love it.

Serena Reynolds: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sara Ferrer: He's just like, and I'm like, yeah. Um, and then I'll tell you, I usually always like to, at the end of the day to kind of soften it out. Always something with a little Latin flare. You know, I'm not a great dancer, especially, I don't do salsa dancing or bachata, but like that idea of like, everything's gonna be okay.

Serena Reynolds: I love a bit movement, but I also, I do listen to, I wouldn't stop classical.

Sara Ferrer: No, in the morning,

Serena Reynolds: get the brain activated girl. I like heavy, heavy instrumentals when I'm thinking like Kate said, you know. No word. No songs. Songs. Because I'm,

Sara Ferrer: yes.

Serena Reynolds: So yeah. Instrumentals for when, I just need to think, but it's, it's be a bit heavy. I need to have some.

Sara Ferrer: I freaking, that's a great question. I told you before we even started the interview, I'm like, you're gonna ask a question for the next guest. Serena and I cannot help ourselves. We are gonna take the time to pretend that we are the next guest and answer it, but that is.

Serena Reynolds: I do most of the time try and think it in my head. I don't always have to say it out loud, but Sara can ask.

Sara Ferrer: Oh, that's true. I have no restraint. Like, okay, let me, lemme play this game. Um, this. So if anyone's listening, Kate and anyone's like, okay, listen, she built this business. She's got great taste in music.

Sara Ferrer: They're like, yes, she's the real deal. How can people find more out about Dip? Where to find it, how to try it, all that good stuff.

Serena Reynolds: How do I get

Serena Reynolds: some in the uk?

Kate Assaraf: We can ship it to you. Yeah, for sure. So it's Dip already.com, and then if you go to the website, there's a store locator button. So see if there's anywhere in town that has it.

Kate Assaraf: It's really important to these small stores that we keep them alive. So go to the store locator, right in the header, and then if you want to find us online or just do some more discovering on Instagram and TikTok, we're at Dip already.

Sara Ferrer: It's just like, but it's just like, it smells good, it looks good, but it's very clear that a hair expert. Has no idea, ha has not, has not, has not been involved in this process. More of a marketer has been involved in the process. So

Serena Reynolds: do you know what I, I full confessions here. The, the shampoo bars I've tried, like you said, you know, rubbing really hard.

Serena Reynolds: I thought I was using them wrong. I didn't know whether I had to lather 'em up here or

Kate Assaraf: you're using them right?

Serena Reynolds: Shave it. I had no idea. I was obviously doing it wrong. I didn't like it, so I can't wait to try Dip.

Serena Reynolds: yes, yes.

Serena Reynolds: I mean, it's so important to keep the experience that people expect, like myself included. You're absolutely right because on so many of the, the, um, eco brands, they kind of lose some of that.

Kate Assaraf: They try and tell you like, oh, the lather isn't cleaning or anything. It's like, doesn't matter. I want that feeling like, I like the feeling.

Kate Assaraf: It has nothing to do with whether the lather is responsible for it or not. I.

Sara Ferrer: Hundred percent. It's just like toothpaste. I want the mint taste.

Kate Assaraf: Yeah. I want the, but

Sara Ferrer: the mint taste doesn't do anything. Gimme the goddamn mint taste. I

Kate Assaraf: know. I want the mint taste. I, I agree. I think you have to.

Serena Reynolds: I've got chocolate flavored toothpaste ladies.

Sara Ferrer: Oh, Serena. Serena, I,

Serena Reynolds: it's a bit weird. But I, I had to buy it.

Sara Ferrer: Kate, I just feel like you understand the consumer because you are the consumer.

Sara Ferrer: We really love having, because we then can check in on you in six months in a year where is Dip at because it's, it's so rooted. It already has a base, it has a, it has customers. Now it's just a matter of evolving. So we will certainly make sure to, um, to be in touch. Uh, again, anyone listen. Support, local support mom and pop and, and support Dip.

Sara Ferrer: It's just been a really wonderful time hearing your story, so thank you. Thank you for being here and just really being transparent about everything from the journey to the karaoke bar.