Carolyn Aronson is betting big on It’s a 10 Haircare’s 20th anniversary year.
The CEO and founder is leveraging two decades of success and annual retail revenue of $500 million into the brand’s first spokesperson, a packaging rebrand, and an autobiographical book release chronicling the life of the self-made billionaire and sole owner of It’s a 10 Enterprises.
As previously reported by Glossy, the longtime hairstylist and salon owner launched professional hair-care brand It’s a 10 in 2006 with one hero product: Miracle Leave-In spray. The $21 formula was an immediate success for its ability to hydrate, smooth, condition, defrizz and protect hair with one formula. The brand had immediate success by seeding the product to professional hairstylists before entering Ulta Beauty, Target, Sally’s Beauty, Cosmoprof, SalonCentric and Amazon, and selling DTC.
Today, the company sells around 11 million bottles of its Miracle Leave-In variations annually in the U.S. The line is now in 130 international markets and has expanded with several standalone lines, including hair color, color cosmetics, hair extensions and men’s products.
Together, the lines generate $500 million in annual retail revenue, Aronson told Glossy. “We’ve had the ups and downs,” she said. “In 2025, we [were] up almost 4%. In this climate, that’s not an easy thing for brands to do.”
In 2025, the company launched Cloud Haircare, a line of vegan, Gen-Z-coded hair products priced around $10 at CVS and Walmart. The company also launched an It’s a 10 Haircare range extension with Clear, a line of transparent care and styling products free from dyes, silicones and more ingredients consumers have grown weary of. Finally, the company made its first acquisition with F.A.S.T., a niche Canadian line of clinically-proven hair products anchored in a fortified amino scalp therapy system.
But Aronson has even bigger plans for 2026, starting with the announcement of its first global brand ambassador.
“We have been on a search for quite some time to find the perfect person,” Aronson told Glossy. “We have gotten organic support from [many celebrities] publicly [in the past, but] we never paid them a dime. … So when we chose someone, we wanted to make sure they chose us, too.”
Announced on April 10, the brand has hired Khloé Kardashian as its global brand ambassador. Her partnership will entail a series of public appearances, a multi-channel advertising campaign and short-form video content throughout the year.
“This wasn’t just a pay and play kind of a thing,” Aronson said. “[Kardashian] really believes in it so much, has used the products for years, and just has a passion for the products, the brand and the story of the company, because our story is unique.”
Kardashian is also in business expansion mode. In 2025, she launched a podcast called “Khloé in Wonder Land,” which includes wide-ranging topics and guests, including one-on-one chats with Kim, Kylie and Kris, plus conversations with beauty pros like Ouai founder Jen Atkin, music icon Dolly Parton, and media personalities like Jay Shetty and Mel Robbins.
Kardashian is also the owner of fashion brand Good American, co-founded alongside entrepreneur Emma Grede in 2016, which sells in standalone brick-and-mortar stores, DTC, and through retailers like Revolve and Macy’s. In 2025, Kardashian launched a line of functional, high-protein snacks called Khloud, which sells popcorn and chips DTC, on Amazon and through Target. She currently has 298 million followers on Instagram.
“It’s amazing to join the brand as it celebrates 20 years and prepares to step into a new era,” Kardashian said in a statement. “That kind of reinvention — without losing what made the brand great in the first place — is really powerful.”
Kardashian’s presence will also punctuate the line’s packaging revamp. “We are totally rebranding, … [but] we’re still going to look like It’s a 10,” Aronson said. “[We worked] incredibly hard to make sure we stay true to the brand, because I think it’s crucial. I’ve watched the nightmare stories where companies go a whole other way, and you don’t even know they’re the same company.”
The company will work hard to message the rebranding while stressing that the formulas will not change. The company will begin to phase in the new, custom packaging in summer 2026. Aronson’s phase-in strategy includes three months of new packaging exclusivity at Ulta Beauty, followed by an official rebrand launch event. Prioritizing the U.S. market, the new packaging will gradually expand into the brand’s 130 international markets.
The rebrand campaign will be anchored in the message of “salon-level reinvention, at home,” and will lean into Kardashian’s own personal reinvention. For example, Kardashian hosted the makeover show “Revenge Body” in the 2010s and has been open about cosmetic procedures as part of her own post-divorce reinvention from 2016.
Also on Aronson’s plate this year is her forthcoming book, called “Lift, Hold, Shine,” set to be released October 6 by Simon and Schuster. Aronson has been writing the book, dubbed by the publisher as a “vulnerable and inspiring memoir,” for three years — and she has big post-release aspirations.
“For about 25 years, I’ve been envisioning a movie [about my life],” Aronson said. “That’s kind of how my mind works, anyway. I always have this kind of foresight and this ability to think eons ahead, and then I kind of work backward from there and do everything possible to make those visions come to life.” To celebrate, Aronson will host a lavish event on October 10 in Miami, where Aronson is based, for hundreds of attendees.
It’s part of an ongoing initiative to raise brand awareness and help Aronson become more public-facing. “I don’t like to boast, you know? I’m kind of a private person,” Aronson said. “I want people to love the products, love the brand, understand what my life is committed to and enjoy it. … I always say, ‘In my 40s, I was justified; in my 50s, I was finally recognized.'”
Looking ahead, Aronson told Glossy that she is not planning to sell or merge the company with a larger conglomerate, nor does she want to explore an IPO or invest in factories or manufacturing.
“At this point, we might as well just keep going, keep adding on, building more brands and kind of becoming the next beauty mogul,” Aronson said. “I just want to keep doing what I love and keep doing what we’re doing, because it’s working — and we’re one of the few privately owned companies that are doing this type of thing.”
