Highland Haircare didn’t start in a gleaming laboratory. It started on a Denver stovetop. Fed up with hair products that either performed well or checked the clean-ingredient and sustainability boxes, but rarely did both, Boulder native Boone Whiteside decided to make his own. His friend Ben Medalies’ kitchen became the unofficial lab.
“It didn’t start in a pretty lab or with millions in funding. That’s for sure,” Boone says. He began ordering raw ingredients and experimenting with formulas himself, convinced there had to be a way to create products that delivered without compromising the health of hair and scalp. “Highland came out of the belief that performance and long-term health aren’t opposites,” he says. “They’re just rarely engineered together.”
Boone and Ben met in college and bonded over a shared desire to do things differently. Eventually, a simple question, “Why not us?” helped turn their kitchen experiments into Highland Haircare. Even the name comes home to Colorado: Highland is the Boulder avenue where Boone grew up.
The brand debuted with glacial clay pomade and has since expanded its lineup. Glacial cream, a styler designed to enhance texture while keeping hair feeling natural, became a bestseller. Next came the wash, a pH-balanced, botanically powered shampoo, followed by its cheekily named counterpart, the condish.
The playful names belie how seriously the pair takes formulation. “We formulate for the long-term health of hair and scalp, not just how it looks the morning you use it,” Ben says. But there’s one nonnegotiable: “If it doesn’t work, then we also fail.”
It’s a balance the Boulder duo continues to obsess over, proving that high-performing hair care doesn’t necessarily require choosing between what works and what feels good to use. And considering Highland started over a kitchen stove, it seems fitting to wonder what Boone and Ben will cook up next.
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