Richualist's Mint Puts Heat, Product and Detangling in One Tool

Richualist has developed Mint, a pod-based hair tool that detangles, conditions, gels and styles curly hair in a single stroke. It is meant to replace several separate steps with one pass.

The system uses refillable product pods and controlled warming to heat the product before it is applied, according to founder Dawn Myers TechCrunch. The device delivers warmed curl creams and gels directly to natural hair while detangling and styling Richualist. It ships with six attachments for detangling and styling across hair types AfroTech. A travel-size version is also offered.

Myers frames the problem in time and physical stress. She said washing and styling her own hair takes about 1 hour and 20 minutes. She said Richualist cuts styling time to about seven to 10 minutes. She also said the system reduces shedding and breakage by up to 70%.

The hardware path involved materials science. An early prototype caught the attention of Dow during a startup accelerator program, and Richualist built the product with the company afterward. Dow provided engineering help and manufacturing guidance as the design moved toward production.

Myers said the business idea became Richualist. The company describes itself as a technology company for textured hair, or hair with natural curls, coils and waves Richualist. Myers said she was inspired to create a thermal hair infuser, a heated applicator, after a 2017 episode of Shark Tank, and she later received a six-figure offer on the program for The Mint CNBC. She became one of the first 100 Black women to raise more than $1 million in venture funding.

Richualist is listed in TechCrunch's Startup Battlefield company directory TechCrunch. TechCrunch unveiled the 2026 Startup Battlefield 200 on August 20, 2026, which it describes as its annual handpicked list of the 200 most promising early-stage startups TechCrunch.

The broader context here is hardware plus consumables, a setup familiar from coffee makers that use refills. The device handles heat, liquid delivery and the mechanical work of separating curls. The pods hold the chemistry and need replacement. That split lets the company update formulas without redesigning the tool, and it creates repeat revenue tied to use. The risk is common to all pod models. Adoption will depend on pod cost, availability and shelf life as much as on the tool.

Looking at what this means for early-stage hardware, the Dow relationship matters more than the pitch story. Heat near hair and scalp needs tight limits on temperature and flow. Viscosity, how thick a liquid is, shifts with temperature, and polymers, the long molecules that give gels their hold, act differently when warmed. Manufacturing must keep those variables steady at volume. Most startups do not have that process knowledge in house. Engineering help and manufacturing guidance from a materials supplier shortens that learning curve and cuts tooling mistakes.

In my view, the technical bet is integration. Separate tools already heat, separate products already condition, and wide-tooth combs already separate curls. Mint combines measured heat, product delivery and detangling in one pass to cut time and handling. If the 70% breakage reduction and seven to 10 minute figures hold outside controlled demonstrations, the gain is less about convenience and more about long-term hair health. Less tension and heat, repeated weekly over years, adds up.

Worth flagging for readers who build products, textured hair has been underserved by mainstream beauty engineering, not because the physics are unclear but because testing and design focused elsewhere. That leaves room for purpose-built tools to improve daily life in concrete ways. Technology, over the long arc, tends to do its best work in those overlooked gaps.