about us
At Esteem Maison we have one goal:
To assist you in being the best version of yourself from head to toe - every day.
We believe that this starts with self love – fully accepting yourself, taking care of your wellbeing, and treating yourself with kindness and respect. It also requires a heavy dose of honesty. Our promise to you is that Esteem Maison will, without compromise, offer high performing and safe products, while serving as a source of meaningful information that you can trust.
our products
Esteem Maison offers high-performing and thoughtfully developed hair care and skin care products.
All products are formulated with the utmost attention to detail, using the cleanest and most effective natural ingredients available. We enjoy researching natural ingredients through a global lens and are proud to include thoughtfully selected, minimally processed, high efficacy (mostly) plant-based materials sourced from villages and towns all over the world, including the U.S., Africa, Asia and Europe.
We formulated our salon quality hair care products primarily for use on curly hair. We decided to focus on curly hair as curly hair texture and structure require a different maintenance regimen to keep the hair healthy and styled. Based on a significant amount of research and trial, Esteem Maison’s products uniquely and efficiently cleanse, condition, moisturize, hydrate and strengthen a wide range of hair types. Equally important, our products provide significant hair styling benefits, especially in enhancing all types of curls – for both women and men. Whether your curls are small, large, tight, or bouncy, Esteem Maison’s products are designed to work for you.
Our skin care line includes luxurious body butters, unrefined shea butter and Western U.S. desert sourced organic jojoba oil. Our products are made with plant derived ingredients, including unrefined African shea butter and cold-pressed essential and carrier oils – our products include no petroleum based nor synthetic compounds or alcohols. Additionally, unlike many premium skin care products on the market, Esteem Maison’s products are all water free, which results in higher concentration of key ingredients and keeps the products fresher longer. This results in longer lasting moisturization and hydration, providing our users with significantly enhanced value. We developed our products to help hydrate, moisturize, heal and boost skin elasticity, while providing anti-aging and anti-inflammatory benefits.
Our product development philosophy starts and ends with our consumers top of mind. We operate with an unrelenting focus on maximizing user value and intentionally stack as many product benefits as possible into our hair and skin care products. The result – better performing products that are efficient and easy to use, and cost-effective.
our commitment
We’re committed to continuous learning from our consumers and from our ongoing research, all for the purpose of improving the value we provide you. Our promise is that, in addition to making the best products we can, we’ll communicate with you in an honest and transparent manner – always. In doing so, we’ll listen more than we talk. Importantly, what we won’t do is intentionally mislead you with false statements or gimmicks. We fully understand that great relationships are built on trust and that trust must be earned – without compromise and over time. We’re ready to start the building process right now.
We’re living in a period where there is great acceptance of a wider range of hairstyles. Culturally, this is exciting as we have more freedom to explore and embrace varied styles with far fewer obstacles. Changes in workplace and professional norms are expanding the boundaries of accepted hair styles, enabling more individualism in style and appearance. Further, we’re seeing significant progress in developing more effective and safer hair care products tailored to meet the needs of a wider range of consumers. At Esteem Maison, we couldn’t be more optimistic and enthusiastic about this. Why? Because all this change leads to more choice and to consumers winning.
So, whether you wear your hair curly or straight, untreated or treated, natural or colored, braided, twisted, extended, or otherwise, we salute you. We don’t judge – we just support you being the best version of yourself.
our founder
Esteem Maison was borne out of our founder Monica Johnson’s desire to not only create products, but to create a sense of community, whereby everyone embraces their natural selves.
After years of relaxing her hair and spending considerable time in styling salons, only to have her styled hair fade after a few days due to humidity or working out, Monica wore a ponytail for 12 years. That was the first step toward going ‘natural.’ Next, she went full curly and hasn’t looked back. After using a range of products and thoroughly researching curly hair properties, product ingredients, toxicity and unmet needs, Monica decided to launch her own brand.
An avid style and fitness enthusiast who exercises daily at a high level, she set a high standard in defining what’s required for products to be considered effective. Esteem Maison products need to perform and hold up in a range of environments and must suit a range of lifestyles, including those who are active or on the go all day. Monica also understood that consumers desire hair products that work well without being overly complicated or overly time-consuming in application. That’s why we created a product line that is simple and efficient to use.
After working with a formulary partner for two years, and repeatedly tweaking the formulas to make them cleaner and better performing, in January 2024, Monica finally greenlit the initial Esteem Maison hair product line.
Along the way, Monica was frequently asked what she did to take care of her skin, including how she maintained firmness, radiance and glow. She always offered the same reply – shea butter and natural oils, along with an active lifestyle and good diet. With considerable encouragement, she decided to add skin care products to the Esteem Maison line and moved to personally develop the luxurious body butters. Interestingly, the skin care launch idea occurred after initially considering it 25 years ago – just as she started raising her three sons. Her thoughts…” Better late than never!”
Throughout Monica’s discovery and launch journey, her husband and three sons provided unwavering encouragement and product development, branding, marketing and logistical support. United in pursuit of Esteem Maison’s mission and purpose, we’re proud to offer hair care and skin care solutions designed to bring you joy, boost your self-esteem and improve your quality of life.
Esteem Maison translates to House of Esteem. Esteem refers to having great respect and admiration for yourself and for other persons.
Welcome to the House. And please visit often as we’d love to get to know you.