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In ELLE.com’s series Office Hours, we ask people in powerful positions to take us through their first jobs, worst jobs, and everything in between. This month, we spoke to Dianna Cohen, founder of the luxury hair-care brand Crown Affair. Cohen’s path to beauty entrepreneurship all began in 2018 with a Google Doc, where she outlined her top products and hair-care routine to help a few of her friends with their own hair journeys. “It [ended up] way beyond my network. That Doc was the light-bulb moment that I needed to start Crown Affair,” she says. Since 2019, the brand has launched dozens of cult-favorite products, like The Dry Shampoo and The Leave-In Conditioner, and tomorrow marks the launch of Take Your Time, a candle made in collaboration with luxury candle company Nette to capture the aroma of Crown Affair’s signature scent. Here, Cohen discusses her love for beauty rituals, her hair-care routine, and how Kate Moss inspired the fragrance in all of her products.
My first job
I worked at our local library in the small town that I grew up in. I helped put books back, and I loved it.
My worst job
I interned for a fashion company during the early CFDA days in the 2010s. The company didn’t want to hire or pay for messengers, so that was my internship. I think we’ve all been there. We grew up in that generation. It was tough. The worst part was that I even had to pay for my own subway card.
My first beauty memory
I have very vivid memories of being a kid and sitting on the side of the bathtub and having my mom comb my hair when it was wet from the pool. Growing up in Florida, I feel like I lived in the pool, so she always made sure my hair was taken care of.
How I broke into the beauty industry
I was very lucky to start my career at Into the Gloss back in 2012. I was doing anything and everything, from transcribing interviews to doing the Pinterest board and Instagram. I was also doing production for native advertorials and setting up the affiliate links in the articles. That was where I really fell in love with the power of beauty. It’s just such a democratizing category; pretty much everyone uses some form of personal-care product. I’ve always been a self-care person. I remember studying abroad in college, and I lived with girls who didn’t go to the same college as me, and they always were like, “Dianna has so many rituals.” And it’s not even about makeup; I wouldn’t say I’m a makeup girlie or even a skin-care person. I just love rituals. I love massages. I love combing and brushing my hair. I love gua sha. I love taking baths.
The deeper purpose behind Crown Affair
Having worked with direct-to-consumer brands for a decade, you are easily able to identify that if someone doesn’t understand the value of a product, they’re not going to purchase it. Because of the Google Doc, I immediately saw that people didn’t understand why they should spend $100 on a hair brush, or why they shouldn’t just buy a shampoo and conditioner from the drug store. So yes, I would love for people to buy and fall in love with our products, but Crown Affair is actually about elevating the consciousness of taking care of our hair and, by extension, ourselves.
How I came up with the name
The name has two meanings. The first is that my husband and I love the 1999 version of the film The Thomas Crown Affair. But more literally, the name is about the crown of your head and a love affair. I remember being in a workout class years years ago, and the instructor told everyone in the class to lift through their crown, and everybody just stood up taller, with more grace. As I got more into understanding my body and spirituality, the crown chakra was very groundbreaking to me.
On using my art history background to build a brand
People are always confused, because my major was art history, and my minor was Italian. But I feel like it’s all helpful—you don’t have to be a marketing major to do this stuff. All the colors from Crown Affair come from [artist] Ed Ruscha. And all of us call back to our childhood or the things we feel really drawn to. So there’s a lot of whimsical Jim Henson, The Dark Crystal stuff in the branding. There’s a lot of Lord of the Rings stuff in there. There’s a lot of Sandro Botticelli stuff. But there are also Japanese rituals and aesthetic references.
The secret of Crown Affair’s signature scent
One of the first emails I sent when developing the brand was to our fragrance house, because I knew how important fragrance is in hair care. Prior to launching Crown Affair, I would talk to friends and interview people, and I would ask, “What do you use? Why do you use it?” And they’d be like, “Oh, I use Oribe because I love the scent.” Yes, the product needs to work. But scent is just weirdly even more important. So I told the fragrance house that I wanted it to smell like if Kate Moss was in Japan in the 1970s. I wanted it to be fresh, which is where you get those sparkling citrus notes at the top, with a very calming Zen feeling, which is where you get the green tea and the calla lilies. And then the base notes are a little bit sexier, smokier, and funkier, which is the 1970s feeling. I love where we landed with it—it’s one of my favorite scents.
Crown Affair The Signature Scent
How the collaboration with Nette came to be
There’s no better smell than when you take a shower and wash your hair, and the bathroom smells so fresh and delicious. I think we wanted to bring that to people, even if they didn’t have to wash their hair that day. People have asked us for a candle for a very long time, and it’s really hard to get a candle exactly right—you can’t actually take the literal scent and just put it in a candle. I’m a believer in working with people who are excellent in the things that they do, so I’m really excited to launch this with Nette. I’ve been a Nette fan since they launched, and Carol Han Pyle, the brand’s founder, has been a Crown Affair customer since we launched. I just think Carol’s philosophy and standards are so remarkable.
My hair-care routine
If it’s not a wash day, the things that pull me together are brushing my hair in the evening with a dual bristle brush and The Leave-In Conditioner from mid-length through ends—it just keeps it hydrated and soft. It also keeps it flexible, which is very important if you’re trying to grow your hair. Finally, I use The Dry Shampoo every day of my life before leaving the house. It’s my holy grail product ’til the end.
If I’m doing a really luxurious wash day, I’ll brush my hair before getting in the shower. I use The Cleansing Scrub, which gives so much lift at the root. I like to do The Renewal Mask—for years, I’ve used masks instead of conditioner. Then I comb, towel, and apply the leave-in and The Air Dry Mousse. Most days, I air dry, apply a little bit of the oil, and then I do my little twist and clip with my little clippies to get a heatless wave.
Why hair is so important to me
Hair is everything. It’s such a huge part of all of our identities. I really care about it. I view taking care of your hair as important as journaling or meditation, and it’s really about the consistency versus just achieving a look in that moment. Hair is the ultimate, final accessory.
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
Carol Lee is the Associate Beauty E-Commerce Writer at ELLE.com, where she covers all things beauty and personal care. Before joining the team, she was an editor at Food Network Magazine and HGTV Magazine and ran the beauty section at The Pioneer Woman. Carol received her bachelor’s degree in Journalism from New York University and was one of the first customers to visit Glossier’s flagship store in New York’s Soho neighborhood. Over the years, she’s tested countless makeup, hair, and skin care products, and written hundreds of articles covering the beauty space, from pieces about the trendiest launches to roundups of the best products on the market. As a Korean-American, she grew up in a sea of Korean makeup and skin care products and is a bona fide expert on the ever-expanding world of K-beauty, helping lead our coverage. Additionally, she’s also always on the hunt for the perfect lipstick and watches the same few comfort sitcoms (Frasier, Cheers, Seinfeld, New Girl, etc.) over and over again.