Sometimes, the best business ideas start with a problem you can’t seem to solve for yourself. For Tunisian-Canadian Meriem Mahrez, it was figuring out how to care for her hair while wearing the hijab.
At 14, two years after starting her hijab journey, Meriem started noticing changes in her hair. It was getting flatter, drier, oilier, and gradually thinner. No matter how many products she tried, nothing seemed to help.
What started as a personal haircare struggle would eventually lead her to become a certified trichology hair practitioner and launch You are Your Home (YYH), a haircare brand created to address the needs she felt were missing from the beauty industry.
Her First Steps in the Beauty Industry
Fueled by her motivation to find a solution, Meriem started working at Sephora in 2017. There, she witnessed the gap firsthand. Even though hijabis were being represented more in beauty campaigns, their actual needs were still being overlooked.
“When I was trained on haircare, no one could address what we could recommend to covered-hair concerns. That gap really stayed with me. I spent two years researching the relationship between covered hair, scalp health, and hair loss, while experimenting with ingredients and formulations to just find a solution of my own.”
From a Personal Struggle to YYH
Little did she know it would take more than two years to develop a working formula. Four years later, YYH’s superseed oil, a pre-shampoo scalp and hair treatment, was born. The first version of YYH wasn’t developed in a glossy lab. It started in her parents’ basement.
“I sourced raw ingredients in bulk locally, garden cress seed from Egypt through a family friend because it wasn’t readily available elsewhere, glass bottles from China and labels from a local print shop. We started selling out regularly, and I quickly realized I had reached the limit of what I could produce on my own.”
Through continued research and customer feedback, the product evolved. Partnering with an organic manufacturer, Meriem reworked the formula. Rather than purchasing a new glass bottle each time, she developed a refill system using packaging made with 70% recycled plastic.
Why the Name YYH?
When it came to choosing a name, Meriem wanted something that held deep personal meaning and reflected the purpose behind the brand.
“A friend once sent me a quote that included the words, “you are your home,” and something about it immediately resonated. It meant learning to feel at home within yourself. We spend so much of our lives looking outside of ourselves for fulfillment, when so much begins with how we care for what we already have.”
From Hijabis to Everyone
Although YYH started out as a brand targeting hijabis, it has since grown into something broader, with the goal of providing care to anyone who needs it, regardless of age or gender. Meriem said that many men use Superseed on their scalps and beards to soothe razor-irritated skin. She has even used it on her niece and nephew as newborns to help clear up their cradle cap.
“The philosophy is simple: if your hair and scalp need more attention, YYH is for you.”
What the Future Holds
Meriem still has a lot she wants to accomplish. Her main goal is to continue solving real problems through simple, effective routines while maintaining clean formula standards and sustainable packaging. She also hopes to pass on her knowledge to other hair practitioners.
“We want to bring covered-hair health to the wider trichology conversation and see it taught in professional hair and beauty schools. Education matters because you can’t prevent something you don’t know about. Many of these concerns can be prevented when they’re understood and addressed.”
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