Why a fashion partnerships expert built a scalp-care brand

In the Australian beauty market every product has to earn its bathroom real estate and scalp care, once the awkward pharmacy namesake, has become one of the industry’s more persuasive new categories. In the US prestige market, scalp care sales rose 19 per cent in the first half of 2025, while Australian pharmacy aisles are filling with local names including hair-growth brand Bouf and Melbourne-based scalp care company, Straand. Straand was established in 2022, consisting of prebiotic, microbiome-focused formulas, electric-orange packaging and a clear conviction that dandruff deserved better branding. Four years later, the business is backed by more than $4 million in funding including a 2 million dollar investment from Unilever Ventures and expanding into Adore Beauty, Oz Hair & Beauty, 500 Priceline pharmacies and 250 Boots stores in the UK.It is a considerable ascent for a brand built around flakes, itch and irritation, all subjects once discussed with slight mortification. Co-founder Meagan Pate has a unique background that spans partnerships across Vogue and GQ, makeup artistry and brand strategy. She’s also the chief operating officer of skincare-based tanning brand Three Warriors. In this interview, Inside FMCG spoke to Pate about intuition, stigma, retail authority and why she thinks most founders spend more time checking invoices than looking camera-ready.Inside FMCG (IFMCG): Considering the experience you have in brand strategy, helping other brands find their voice before building your own, what did you understand about branding that you don’t think can really be taught?Meagan Pate (MP): Intuitive decision-making, and having the confidence to back it. That can be challenging when you’re building a business, because naturally stakeholders, teams, retailers and investors often want rationale, data and proof points. And of course those things matter. Branding, especially in the early stages or when you’re forging your own path often requires you to make decisions before the market has fully validated them.I think with experience, exposure and creative consumption [like] working across different brands, categories, audiences and cultural moments, you start to build a stronger instinct for what feels right, what feels off, and what has the potential to become meaningful.It’s almost like an intuitive muscle. The more you listen to the consumer, stay connected to the community, observe culture (social watching) and understand how brands move through the world, the more discerning you become.For me, great branding isn’t just about having the perfect rationale for every decision. It’s about knowing when something has energy, when it has tension, where it has friction and when it is worth backing, or at the very least exploring before it “makes sense”.IFMCG: Straand is built around a problem many people live with behind closed doors rather than openly talk about. Was there a point when you realised you were also helping change a conversation?MP: So for us, the mission was never just about treating a scalp concern. It was about changing the language around it, moving from shame, embarrassment and “anti-dandruff” to scalp health, confidence and care.Having personally struggled with low self-esteem and skin issues, including debilitating acne in my teens, I know how deeply something “cosmetic” can impact the way you show up. It was really important to me that Straand stood for something beyond product. Even if we play a small role in helping people feel less embarrassed, less alone, and more empowered to understand and care for their scalp, that feels meaningful.I often think back to that younger version of myself who really struggled, and the kind of voices, brands and conversations that would have helped her at the time, that part was such a deep part of who Straand was from the beginning, and one of our key missions – to normalise the conversation around scalp health and remove the shame and stigma that sits around concerns like dandruff, flakes, itch and irritation.IFMCG: Beauty can sometimes feel like an industry chasing the next trend, so how do you decide which ideas are worth pursuing and which are simply passing moments?MP: I always come back to one question: is this deserving of someone’s top 10 – or even better, their top 5? Consumers are already overwhelmed. There is so much product, so much noise and so many claims, so for an idea to be worth pursuing it has to earn its place.So for me, it’s about overlaying instinct with market qualifiers. Do we believe in it creatively and commercially? Is the consumer already showing us there is a need? And can we build something that continues to matter once the initial noise has moved on?That’s usually the difference between something that is momentarily interesting and something that can become part of someone’s routine.I also look to other categories, for instance with Straand we lean on prebiotics and microbiome understanding – this has been well established and validated within the wellness category. IFMCG: Working across magazines like Vogue and GQ, you would’ve seen countless beauty trends come and go. What convinced you scalp care was worth more than just another trend?MP: For me it came back to felt friction. The category felt dormant. It felt outdated, clinical, and not reflective of where the consumer had moved. People were already talking about skin barrier, microbiome, prebiotics, actives, gentle exfoliation and ingredient-led routines – but when it came to the scalp, the conversation, and products still felt quite shame-based and problem-hiding.That disconnect made scalp care feel different. It was sitting at the intersection of much bigger shifts: the skinification of hair, wellness, ingredient literacy, pharmacy-led beauty, problem-solving beauty, and the move away from taboo language.We had already seen beauty become much more open and stigma-free around things like acne and “flawsome” beauty. So it felt inevitable, and exciting to bring that same logic to scalp. IFMCG: Was there a decision that felt difficult at the time but was for the betterment of the business. What stands out for you?MP: The bright orange bottle was definitely one. I was sleepless for weeks before launch because anti-dandruff still carried so much stigma. Putting a bright orange bottle in someone’s shower that literally screamed “anti dandruff” felt like it could go one of two ways.I’m so glad we backed it, because the orange has become so brand-coded. It’s now such a marker for Straand, and as we’ve become more retail-first, it’s been really energising to see how it shows up on the shelf. Weirdly you would think backing the category before the category felt obvious would be uncomfortable, but it never has been. We’ve always believed scalp would cement itself as a fixture in the beauty industry.IFMCG: What part of entrepreneurship do you think most people underestimate?MP: I think people underestimate how many hats you have to wear and for how long. There is founder mode, manager mode, operator mode and then the constant context switching between sales, marketing, creative, logistics, accounting, operations, retailer management and team management. It’s very rare to meet a founder who hasn’t at some point been deeply involved in almost every function of their business.The hard part is that even if you are capable, your ability to go really deep in any one area is limited – because you’re human. So much of entrepreneurship is learning to be comfortable as a generalist, while “babysitting” certain functions until the business can afford to bring in specialists.That part is rarely visible from the outside, people see the launch, the retailer, the event, the press, the founder content. They don’t always see the founder in sweats, sitting behind a laptop for hours, solving operational issues, reviewing margins, chasing stock, briefing creative, checking invoices and then somehow also needing to show up on social looking energised and camera-ready.I love the storytelling side of being a founder, but the reality is most of the work happens far away from the camera. Growth is exciting, but it’s also deeply operational, repetitive and often quite unglamorous.Further reading: The one-SKU strategy behind Eye of Horus’ retail growth.