--- title: "Suveen Sahib of K18 Biomimetic Hairscience: Rewriting Foundational Industry Rules Requires Unlearning Everything Laid Before You" url: "https://authoritymag.co/articles/suveen-sahib-of-k18-biomimetic-hairscience-rewriting-foundational-industry-rules-requires-unlear" publisher: "Authority Magazine" author: "Candice Georgiadis" authorUrl: "https://authoritymag.co/authors/candice-georgiadis" interviewee: "Suveen Sahib" company: "K18 Biomimetic Hairscience" category: "Tech" datePublished: "2021-08-30T19:23:33.447Z" dateModified: "2026-11-12T17:08:24.921Z" tags: "Tech" --- # Suveen Sahib of K18 Biomimetic Hairscience: Rewriting Foundational Industry Rules Requires Unlearning Everything Laid Before You *The co-founder and CEO discusses the decade-long journey of mapping human keratin expression and turning a major market crisis into rapid acceleration.* > At that point, my conviction and my willingness to unlearn everything that had been laid out in the industry before is what got us over the finish line. --- As*a part of our series about how technology will be changing the beauty industry over the next five years, I had the pleasure of interviewing Suveen Sahib.* *Suveen Sahib has committed his life to understanding the biology of hair. Both his background in engineering and wife Britta Cox, the CEO of AQUIS, have helped him reach a key understanding: utilizing cosmetic chemistry is not the best the industry can do when it comes to hair damage. Suveen decided the market was missing a product that didn’t just treat hair damage, but could make hair feel new again. He knew that to achieve this, there needed to be a product that can create a strong internal architecture so the hair can withstand everyday stress. This led to in-depth research into biomimetic technologies and bioactive peptides created from DNA sequences, that eventually became the impetus for the K18Peptide™.* *The K18Peptide™is the outcome of collaborations with skincare delivery research scientists and a top European bio-engineering scientist, Professor Artur Cavaco Paulo and his team. Together, they mapped the entire genome expression of human keratin over the course of a decade, curating biomimetic technologies that guide the shape and behavior of hair fibers, and have the ability to actually reverse chemical damage.* *After a decade of research, Suveen and the team discovered that the K18Peptide™, a patented bio-active peptide that will pave the way for the next generation of haircare, is the only one of its kind. The K18 Biomimetic Hairscience brand came to life soon after this hair-changing discovery. K18 offers the first product line that goes beyond hair repair to restore chemically damaged hair to near virgin-like strength and resilience. The K18Peptide™ locks in the amino acids as they naturally are inside the hair to reconform disulfide bonds and reconnect broken keratin chains.* *Suveen is currently the CEO + Co-Founder of*[K18 Biomimetic Hairscience](http://www.k18hair.com)*&*[AQUIS](https://aquis.com/?gclid=CjwKCAiAxp-ABhALEiwAXm6IyVToxCXSDOtE0lTtgqfljs3B92XaXt9ewZ9nKCTWlxsDxfe8T2V38RoC5PwQAvD_BwE)*and resides in the San Francisco Bay area with his wife, Britta.* --- **Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?** My first window into haircare was talking about the AQUIS hair towel with a friend. I remember we were having a conversation in Bryant Park and I realized, no one had ever really thought about the most optimized way to dry their hair. That, coupled with what it meant to the customers that it was saving them time, that’s what got me really excited. I love looking at things from a user’s lens. UX matters in its simplest structure. This product looked at hair first, asked what it needed, then provided the solve. I became obsessed after this conversation, reading chemistry books, trying to understand, “what’s the chemistry of hair, what happens to it when it’s wet? What about when it’s chemically damaged?” That was the “aha” moment. This product worked with the biology of hair. In my research I discovered hair wasn’t made for product, so what was? What actually works with the hair? That lead me to investigate recombinant proteins, protein-based polymers, and bioactive peptides with applications in drug delivery, antibodies, and enzymes. The question became OK, how do we get these into the hair and make them actually work? This curiosity led me to connect with skincare experts and scientists that ultimately ended in our discovery of what is now the K18Peptide™. The science came first, then we built the brand from there. **Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?** During a period where we were working on gauging interest and partnering with investors, we had a huge meeting set up with the CEO of a fortune 100 company to discuss the blueprint for K18. After evaluating the blueprint with his company scientists, they decided what we wanted to do was impossible. That essentially, it was all marketing BS. This conversation had a huge impact on me because it was a moment of understanding we had something so revolutionary on our hands, that even one of the biggest players in the space couldn’t fathom how it worked or what was possible. It was rewriting what the entire hair industry is fundamentally based on, and that scared people. 8 months later, we filed the patent for K18. I remember telling him during that initial meeting, we will do this — I had no idea how we would, but I believed in it. At that point, my conviction and my willingness to unlearn everything that had been laid out in the industry before is what got us over the finish line. I eventually emailed him to let him know we had filed for our patent and to thank him for being such a big push to make that happen. **Are you able to identify a “tipping point” in your career when you started to see success? Did you start doing anything different? Are there takeaways or lessons that others can learn from that?** In 2008–2009, I was dealing with the economic crisis while still working in the tech space. I, like everyone around me, was reacting to the crisis. Driven by panic and fear, I was looking to everyone else and matching my actions to what those around me were doing at the time, which proved to not be the most lucrative way of keeping the business afloat. Through this, I learned to stop reacting, and instead, respond. The difference was seeing the crisis as an opportunity. If you can focus on what the outcome will be as opposed to emphasizing the specific task or goal to get there, that’s where you will win. It is all about the value of the response and the outcome you’re driving. When the coronavirus hit at the end of March, this was another crisis I was forced to look in the eye and decide whether or not we would react or respond. Looking at our business, we decided fundamentally we would not fear the crisis. We ended up changing the entire business, working at faster rates. We coined the phrase: Shine, Survive, Thrive. I believe if your aim is to shine through a crisis, that guarantees your survival, and is what ultimately leads the business to thrive. Within one month, we were reaching the numbers we normally would have done in 5. We didn’t have time to map it out or plan, we had to move and work. We were picking the battles we knew we could win instead of focusing on staying afloat. **None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person to whom you are grateful who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?** A good friend and confidant, Blythe has played a key role in mentoring me. She has a Midas touch when it comes to business, and her passion and support is amazing. To me, what’s most critical about our relationship is having someone with her level of expertise believe in me and the product. I see building a business less like a sprint and more like a cross-country marathon. She gets that and understands that sometimes you have to run, sometimes you have to sprint, and sometimes you need to stand strategically still. She is always right there to stand with me and knows after standing when the best time to leap is. Another amazing force in my life is my business partner and wife, Britta. She always plays a key role in bringing me back to myself and keeping me on track to my vision when the business is up against hard decisions. **Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. The beauty industry today has access to technology that was inconceivable only a short time ago. Can you tell us about the “cutting edge” (pardon the pun) technologies that you are working with or introducing? How do you think that will help people?** Ultimately, everything we create should transfer into an experience and mitigate daily frustration. Having beautiful hair without cutting down any time or having to add elements or more damage is pointless. Technology only adds value when it solves some of the daily struggle. If it only solves one thing, it’s less valuable. Which is why our entire brand philosophy is centered around the idea of: Doing more with less. Our products work with the biology of hair so that our consumers need less to get to that desired state of hair happiness. It’s about giving them the freedom to do whatever they want to do and being able to get there with less. If we can cut out damage and boost confidence with less, then we’ve done our job. Technology and innovation should always radically simplify the way you manage your life — or in our case, your relationship with your hair. **Keeping “**[Black Mirror](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Mirror)**” and the “**[Law of Unintended Consequences](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unintended_consequences)**” in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?** I believe there is an ethical duty to maintain the integrity of how we license the science we are discovering and using to fuel our brand and products. Everything has a tradeoff; the key is to be aware that everything we discover or employ has impact on multiple levels and then do our best to have immense integrity in our usage of that **Can you share 3 things that most excite you about the “beauty-tech” industry?** The possibilities are the most exciting. You see biotechnology already becoming the future, not just in beauty, but everywhere. The beauty industry up to this point has fallen short on optimizing design and functionality. When it comes to those concepts, nature is the ultimate engineer. So, it’s the excitement of learning how to harness that design and functionality from nature and optimizing it for our lives. It can strengthen our relationship with beauty and wellness, but it’s also going to fundamentally restructure everything we do and how we interact. I really don’t believe we can do it better than nature. It’s about taking that function made for biology and transferring that to the human system. I love looking at life through the lens of hair. What is different about hair that is liberated? The hair we had as kids that has that young texture, that bounce. That’s what makes hair look and feel good. All the elements of that environment come together to make that kind of hair possible, so it’s about recreating that optimal environment for hair. You have to solve the puzzle, then take the puzzle apart to find that one perfect piece and recreate it. For K18 it wasn’t about finding that magic ingredient. It was about the painstaking biosciences work to recreate that whole puzzle (the way our hair genome expresses keratin), that whole hair environment, to find that one piece that fits. **Can you share 3 things that most concern you about the industry? If you had the ability to implement 3 ways to reform or improve the industry, what would you suggest?** In the industry, I believe we must fundamentally rearchitect how you work with your hair. The haircare industry continues to stay rooted in the way it’s always been. The relationship with your hair they’ve created is all about control. Controlling frizz, controlling the style. To me, it needs to shift to understanding your hair and working with it because that’s how you can impact real change and see the results you want. Less is more for your hair and less is what healthy hair really needs, but the current conversation is driven by an industry with tens of thousands of products which further drives over-consumption and waste. I ultimately want to see the product offering cut by half. The number of resources your hair consumes on a daily basis is not good for you, your hair, the planet, or your wallet. When you really think about it, how heavy on resources is just one hair routine with up to 10 products, in and out of the shower to apply and rinse out masks and other treatments? Not to mention, if your hair is already damaged and weak, ample product use further stresses your hair making it more needy and requiring the vicious cycle to start all over again. We have a comparable in skincare. We all know when you have a healthy canvas you can make your makeup go further with a lot less. If you have healthy hair, you need less product, less heat, less styling. Your stylist and colorist can focus on their craft and making your hair look beautiful instead of spending time keeping that broken structure together. The key to healthy hair actually isn’t through more, it’s through less. **You are an expert about beauty. Can you share 5 ideas that anyone can use “to feel beautiful”? (Please share a story or example for each.)** Confidence and comfort are key. Hair happiness comes in learning how to work and be comfortable with your own set of hair circumstances. You may have frizz, you may love the extra volume it adds to your curls or hate it, but it’s about working with it to have comfort in how you look and the confidence to express yourself. Less is more. It’s all about enhancing what you have. That is the key to your individual beauty. It’s not about trying to look like someone else, it’s about focusing on optimizing what you have and learning to love that to unlock the best version of yourself. Non-apologetic expression is liberating. You don’t need to make concessions around expression, and you shouldn’t have to choose between that or damage either. This fearlessness to try something new or explore a new way of being breeds beauty. All-around wellness. How intentional is your routine, how are you working within your environment, how are your stress levels? All these things are factors in the overall wellness ecosystem that can be optimized through biology to make you feel like your best self. Beauty is biology. Each of us has something different, but by understanding this and harnessing the power of nature to inform the best way to take care of ourselves, we can experience a new level of care and results. **You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)** I believe K18 is leading this revolution already — to offer the technology and science that allows people to own their relationship with their hair in a new way. We take care of our silk shirts and cashmere sweaters with immense care, but what about our hair? We need to apply that same philosophy of care. If hair is one of our most precious resources, are we thinking through the way we wash it, the way we dry it, the wear we put it through, the way we feed it? Hair mindfulness is a new way to think about our routine and in that we can unlock confidence that wasn’t possible until now. To truly liberate expression. **Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?** You cannot solve problems by being inside the problem. I have been most successful when I have unlearned everything I knew. You must be critical in something and lean into the discomfort of trying to understand in order to relearn what is necessary to succeed in it. **How can our readers follow you online?** Instagram: @SuveenSahib @K18Hair Website: [www.k18hair.com](http://www.k18hair.com) **Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.** --- Source: https://authoritymag.co/articles/suveen-sahib-of-k18-biomimetic-hairscience-rewriting-foundational-industry-rules-requires-unlear (Authority Magazine, Tech). Interviewee answers are first-person statements of the guest. Index of all pages: https://authoritymag.co/llms.txt