Rita Ora and I are sitting in Claridge’s, chatting about our hair. Despite the discrepancies in, well, pretty much everything about our lives, I am finding Rita’s hair woes hugely relatable. “I have very thin hair… but then I’m Eastern European, so I have very thick eyebrow hair, annoyingly, so I always have tweezers in my bag.”
For Rita’s first foray as a beauty brand co-founder, she’s tackling the former gripe, pairing with beauty entrepreneur Anna Lahey of Vida Glow success to launch TYPEBEA, a clinically-proven four product range to promote hair growth and reduce loss. The key ingredient is Baicapil, a plant-based complex that combats hair loss and stimulates growth, and the hero product is the Overnight Boosting Peptide scalp serum, which during clinical trials was proven to reduce hair loss and promote growth by up to 60% in three months. Because the serum is the most active and potent, it comes in at £43 — though having tested it I would say you don’t need a lot to spread it across your scalp from the pipette, so it should last you a while — and the shampoo, conditioner, and hydra-gloss treatments are all under £30.
Both women have faced hair loss, which is the problem that unites them in their TYPEBEA mission. Lahey suffered from hair loss that she describes as extreme, while Ora, inherited thin hair aside, has long been a chameleon when it comes to her appearance and especially hair, which has lead to problems. “It’s been through so much styling — all the TV and films and music and tours and shows and being on the road and not consistently using the right products and committing to what it was I was trying to change.”
Ora’s passion for hair predates her success. “I’ve always loved changing my hair up and colouring it — my biggest inspiration growing up was Gwen Stefani, and I wanted her iconic bleached hair.” At this point Lahey, who’s sitting on the sofa with us, chimes in with “have you met her?” Cue a little back and forth between the two about Ora being starstruck around Stefani and Lahey wanting all the gossip. Again: relatable, their exchange reminding me of the sort of debrief I fully intend on giving my best friend after I leave the Claridge’s suite with Ora.
They tell me that the fact they fundamentally like one another as people underpins the brand. They say they instantly forged a friendship after first meeting in Australia while Rita was filming The Voice in 2021, with Lahey adding “you never know when a celebrity asks for your number if she’s ever going to call — but Rita did!”
Australian entrepreneur Lahey was one of the first to spot the potential in collagen supplements when she launched Vida Glow in 2014, and it’s now the global #1 marine collagen brand, selling a unit every four seconds. Just as with TYPEBEA, she invested heavily in clinical trials, wanting to prove the efficacy of ingestible collagen, which she did, thereby becoming a pioneer in the field. It looks like she may well be set to have lightning strike twice; the global hair and scalp market is expanding (the projected compound annual growth rate of 6.5% by 2027 looks promising), with the largest category being products tackling hair loss.
It’s a risk I’d have taken whether Rita was on board or not, because I believe in the science
After three years, and 16 rounds of formulation, TYPEBEA has launched in the UK. If you’re rolling your eyes at the idea of yet another brand helmed by a celebrity, Rita and Anna agree with you. “Look,” says Lahey, “ultimately it doesn’t guarantee that it’s going to work; we’ve seen that with mega levels of celebrity, and then you see brands with no celebrity founders that have sold within four years close to a billion US dollars — it’s a risk I’d have taken whether Rita was on board or not, because I believe in the science.”
Along with an obsession with hair, Ora has become fixated on tracking her sleep via the Oura ring. “I've changed a lot; I really do love a good eight-hour sleep. I can't do six, I can't do seven, I need eight or nine hours.”
Not only did Ora meet her business partner, Lahey, during her time in Australia filming The Voice, she also met her now husband, the director Taika Waititi. The pair had an impromptu wedding in August 2022 at their home in LA. Ora wore a Tom Ford dress and Lorraine Schwartz jewellery for the big day, but it was her makeup which really shone. She says she wanted her look to be “bronze and natural and golden.” And the product her make-up artist Anthony H. Nguyen used? Tom Ford’s cult Shade & Illuminate Contour Duo. She says both she and Taika “couldn’t really believe what was happening;” the wedding was planned in a fortnight and held at their home in LA, with Rita proposing to Taika a year after she started dating the New Zealand filmmaker and actor who’s been in films like Jojo Rabbit and Green Lantern.
So with this launch is Ora perhaps poised, like Rihanna, to straddle music and beauty successfully. She’s game. “I wouldn't be here if I didn't have big, big, big dreams.”
