So today I dug into tgin founder’s story because man, I’ve been using their hair products forever. Grabbed my laptop first thing after breakfast, spilled coffee on the notebook already – classic.
The Awkward Start
Opened YouTube search bar real slow, fingers hovering like “uhhh what keywords even work here”. Typed “tgin founder interview” feeling kinda dumb. Found this grainy cellphone vid where she’s talking in a conference room with echo.
Scrolled her Instagram next – deep dive into like… 2014 posts? Her feed looked totally different back then:
- Zero product shots – just blurry lab equipment pics
- Actual selfies with messed-up hair trials (looked like failed science projects)
- Rants about chemistry formulas not working at 2am
The “Oh Damn” Moment
Turns out she’s just another kid from the South Side. Worked 7 years as a chemist mixing hair relaxers before going “screw this” and cooking product batches in her kitchen sink. Her mom thought she’d poisoned the apartment when the first formula exploded.
Checked Twitter next – dug up replies from 2013 when she begged people to test her samples. Found this one girl’s tweet going “bruh this green goop melted my edges” – but she kept replying “TRY BATCH #17 PLS”.
Emailed her asking “yo why start in your kitchen?”. She actually answered 3 hours later while I was eating ramen: “Couldn’t afford lab space. Landlord charged me $50 extra for ‘hazard smells’.”
What Actually Stuck
- Engineering background saved her – used to work with industrial equipment
- Ran FB groups swapping DIY hair recipes for 5 years pre-brand
- Bank denied loans 9 times before some guy at a beauty supply meetup invested
The branding feels all natural now but nah – she straight copied the packaging colors from her grandma’s sofa pattern. Not even kidding.
Writing this made me realize most “overnight success” stories stink like that kitchen sink experiment. Gonna go re-wash my hair with that green goop now.
