Sign inYour hair was never the problem.
The promises on the front of the bottle were: Repair72h shineFor all hair types
Roots translates the back of the bottle into one score for your hair.
You know this shelf.
Each one said what you wanted to hear. You bought them, and for two washes you almost believed it. Then your hair did what it always does, and a thought settled in.
Maybe it's me.
Maybe my hair is just difficult.
It isn't. The front of a bottle is written to sell to everyone, so it was never written for you.
Turn the bottle around.
The truth is on the back, in the ingredient list. It tells you what a product will do. It just doesn't tell you what it will do on your hair.
A real leave-in cream from our catalogue, scored by Roots for two people.
Works against: fine waves, low porosity, oily scalp, wants volume.
0 / 100
The marked butters and oils weigh this hair flat.
Great match for: coarse tight curls, high porosity, dry scalp, wants moisture.
0 / 100
The same butters and oils seal moisture into this hair.
One bottle.Two heads of hair.Two different answers.
That is the whole idea. A product has no single score. It has yours.
Three minutes. Then it's yours.
1. Tell us what your hair does.
Three minutes of questions about how it behaves: how it dries, how it reacts to water, what your scalp is up to. No guessing your “type” from a chart.
2. Meet your hair.
You get your profile across the five dimensions that decide how a product lands: pattern, texture, porosity (how easily your hair takes in and holds water), damage and scalp. In plain English.
3. See what fits, and why.
Hundreds of products, ranked for your hair. Each score opens up to show which ingredients earned it and which ones cost it.
And in the shop, scan it.
Point your camera at any ingredient list. Roots reads it and scores it for your hair, even if the product is not in our catalogue yet.
A score is not a guess.
Most hair advice sorts you into a type and stops there. Roots goes ingredient by ingredient, and it took years to build what sits under every number you see.
Shea butter
One ingredient, rated 20 times.
- Patternstraight to coiled
- Texturefine to coarse
- Porositylow to high
- Damagenone to heavy
- Scalpoily to dry, and reactive
works againstneutralhelps
1,686 ingredients× 20 ratings each
33,720individual ratings.
What helps fine, straight hair can weigh down a coil, so no ingredient gets a single verdict.
Then it gets personal.
Four more things move your score.
Your hair
Thirteen questions place you on those 20 dimensions. Two people with the same curl pattern can get opposite scores for the same bottle.
Your water and weather
Hard water and humid air change how a formula behaves. Roots asks about both and scores with them.
Your number one priority
You tell us the one thing you most want fixed. A product that works against it cannot score well, however good the rest of it is.
The order on the label
Ingredients are listed from most to least. Roots reads that order, so a hero ingredient in last place doesn’t get star billing.
One rule: no brand can pay to change a score.
It comes from the ingredient list alone.
Rooted in science.
Every Roots score follows a method reviewed by cosmetic chemists.
It started as a line in a notebook.
Ideas don't arrive fully formed. They usually arrive as something that annoys you.
2020
It started with my hair. Unfortunately.
I was spending stupid amounts of money on hair products and still had no idea what my hair needed. So I wrote “haircare makes absolutely no sense” in my book of problems. Yes. I have a book of problems.
Years later
Then I involved Niko.
Niko knew nothing about haircare. He did know how to turn complicated problems into systems. Between my obsession and his inability to leave a solvable problem alone, this became ours.
The research
We stopped looking at products. We looked inside them.
We went deep into cosmetic science: ingredients, formulations and how they behave on different hair. Then we mapped it all. Naturally, in a spreadsheet. A very large spreadsheet.
The test
Then it worked on people who weren’t me.
We gave the system to friends with completely different hair. It worked for them too. So we kept building, testing and refining it, then had the scoring method independently reviewed by cosmetic chemists. Two years later, the spreadsheet had become something else.
Today
That something is Roots.
You tell us about your hair. We look at what’s inside products and tell you what makes sense for yours.
Fair questions.
Is Roots free?
Yes. Roots is in beta and free to use.
Do I need an account?
Not to start. You take the quiz first and create an account at the end, so your profile and matches are saved.
Is this an app I download?
Not yet. During the beta, Roots runs in your browser, on your phone or laptop. Once testing is done, it becomes a proper app.
How is a score made?
Each ingredient in a product is rated for how it behaves on different kinds of hair. Your quiz answers decide which of those ratings count for you. The product's score is what its ingredient list adds up to for your hair.
Do brands pay to be recommended?
No. A score comes from the ingredient list alone. If you buy through one of our links we may earn a commission, and that never touches the score.
What if my product isn’t listed?
Scan its ingredient list. Roots scores it for your hair on the spot.
What do you do with my answers?
We use them to score products for you. Your scalp answers are used only with your consent, and you can withdraw it or delete your account at any time. The details are in our privacy policy.
Is this medical advice?
No. Scores measure cosmetic fit. For a scalp problem that persists, see a pharmacist or dermatologist.
Trust your roots.
Three minutes from now you will know your hair better than any label does.
- 3-minute quiz
- Free in beta
- Rooted in science