If you haven’t yet been captivated by the vibrantly colored packaging of amika haircare products, you’re one of a few. I remember the first time I saw the brand displayed on the Cosmoprof Vegas show floor. Models were strutting the aisles with vibrantly colored beach-y umbrellas and shopping bags, carrying eye-catching bottles of shampoos, conditioners, and other haircare essentials. Their multi-hued booth stood out like a tropical hut. I asked my colleagues, “What is that brand?”

Now, more than a decade later, I dare say that most beauty aficionados recognize the brand, as it stands out from the crowd in many ways, from products to graphics, to sustainability, to inclusivity. In addition to its reported No.1 spot with Gen-Z—and the title of No.1 haircare brand at Sephora, it is recognized for its industry-leading products, such as its No. 1 prestige dry shampoo in the U.S. Its recent entry into Ulta Beauty is anticipated to be the biggest hair care launch at the beauty retailer to-date.

Instantly recognizable packaging plays a major role in connecting the customer with the brand. Chelsea Riggs, CEO and founding member of amika, says, amika packaging is unlike anything else in pro or prestige haircare—you know it when you see it.”

Today, amika (always with a “rebellious” lower-case “a”) is described as “a professionally rooted, consumer-loved haircare brand built on one simple belief: all hair is welcome.”

amika’s origins

amika was founded in Brooklyn in 2007 by “industry outsiders” who saw a gap in the market.

Riggs tells Beauty Packaging, “Professional haircare at the time felt clinical, exclusive, and intimidating. We wanted something different: salon-level performance wrapped in joy, inclusivity, and self-expression.”

At its start, amika was created with hairstylists, not just for them. The brand started by supplying hair salons before expanding to consumer sales.

Riggs says their first launches were pro-grade tools designed to empower creativity behind the chair. “Bright prints, unexpected color, and a playful attitude broke up a sea of black irons and brushed steel. That spirit quickly evolved into a full haircare line co-created with stylists and tested on clients—and is where 98% of revenue comes from today.”

The amika name evolves from the Latin word for “friend”—amica—and that philosophy guides everything the brand does, symbolizing its commitment to community and inclusivity. “We aim to be a friend to all hair, to hairstylists, to the planet, and to our communities,” explains Riggs.

industry experts praise amika

Global beauty strategist Elle Morris, founder of Elle Morris Consulting, says, “amika brings a rare combination of purpose, personality, and practical design to the haircare aisle. In a category where packaging can easily blur into sameness, amika delivers boldness with substance.”

Morris adds: “amika’s visual language is unmistakable—bold, hip, confident, and joyfully self-expressive. While many brands hide behind minimalist restraint, amika leans into playful energy and individuality. amika celebrates what makes people different and refuses to fade into the background. On a crowded shelf, amika doesn’t whisper—it screams.”

Apart from packaging, amika is known for its cruelty-free, vegan products that are free of sulfates, parabens, and phthalates. A signature ingredient is the sea buckthorn berry—whose flower is integrated into the graffiti-like design and colors of the packaging, where a close look reveals graphic icons from eyes to hearts to skulls.

Riggs notes, “Our signature superfruit—sea buckthorn—is known as one of earth’s most potent, lipid + omega-rich plant sources. It helps nourish strands, scalp + skin—which is why we infuse it into every single formula.”

In May 2022, Bansk Group, a private investment firm, acquired a majority stake in the company. The Group also owns the haircare brands Eva NYC and Ethique, and the skincare brand BYOMA. 

According to outside sources, amika is on track for $250 million in revenue for 2025.

in the spotlight

Commenting on amika’s outstanding success, Shannaz Schopfer, CEO of The Beauty Architects, tells Beauty Packaging: “amika just gets it. From the moment you see it, the packaging grabs your attention, with bright, playful colors, quirky graphics, and modern typography that feel fresh, fun, and full of personality. There’s an energy to the design that mirrors the brand itself: bold, confident, and unapologetically approachable.

“What really stands out to me, Schopfer continues, “is how amika manages to feel both fun and credible. The products deliver results, yes, but it’s the personality behind the brand, the energy, the confidence, the little design details that make you smile, that make it stick.”

Schopfer tells Beauty Packaging, “I think your readers picked Amika because it’s not just a pretty package; it’s a brand that makes haircare feel exciting, approachable, and a little bit rebellious in the best way. It’s a brand that leaves an impression, and that’s exactly why it deserves the spotlight this year.”

born in brooklyn; packed in north america

While amika was born and raised in Brooklyn, it’s now a global company. Riggs says a vast majority of their products have always been made in North America. More than 3 years ago, they launched an initiative to localize all production and component sourcing as part of their goal to achieve Net Zero by 2035. As a Certified B Corporation, Riggs says, “This shift reinforces our commitment to sustainability—supporting domestic manufacturing, reducing our environmental impact, and ensuring the quality and integrity our community expects.”

As of September 2025, 100% of amika haircare products are manufactured in North America (refer to the “Made In” statement on packaging for full details), with globally sourced components. (Some globally manufactured products may still be seen in the market during the natural sell-through of prior inventory.)

packaging with a purpose

amika says it is committed to “packaging with a purpose.” Riggs explains, “We now use PCR plastics, refill pouches, and have continued our recycling partnership with Pact. As of 2022, amika no longer produces bottles with 100% virgin plastic, and has re-worked their plastic bottles to use up to 90% post-consumer recycled (PCR) plastics (which saves up to 65% of the energy it takes to source and produce virgin plastic.)” amika’s range of wash, mask, and styling products, such as perk-up dry shampoo and soulfood nourishing hair mask, will be on the shelves of Ulta Beauty’s more than 1,500 stores. To extend amika’s commitment to packaging with purpose, these wash + care refill pouches “substantially lower carbon emissions, compared to traditional, virgin plastic bottles.”

Investment in these partnerships is well worth it, and resonates with amika’s customers, says Cindy Lin, founder of CL Beauty Consulting Corp. She notes, “From their slimmed-down low-profile caps, to their “forever” bottles and refillable pouches, amika is clearly vocal and transparent about sustainability commitments, backed up by Provenance and B Corp Status. The fact that they have partnered with Pact speaks volumes. When customers know they can ship back difficult-to-recycle packaging for free, that generates a feeling that amika ‘walks the walk.’” 

amika’s breakthrough product

The brand’s breakthrough moment came when it extended beyond tools into haircare with products like perk-up dry shampoo, soul-food nourishing mask, and wizard detangling primer. Riggs says these “were designed around real pain points stylists were seeing every day: a dry shampoo that didn’t leave residue; a mask that delivered rich results in minutes; and a multi-benefit primer that saved time and steps at the chair.”

The packaging was as disruptive as the formulas. At a time when prestige and pro haircare mostly lived in sleek neutrals or clinical white, Riggs says “amika arrived in bold, layered patterns, saturated color, and a joyful visual language that felt more like art than typical beauty packaging.

Riggs told Beauty Packaging, “When we sent our first labels to print back in 2010, the printer called to tell us the file must be corrupted. They had never seen that many colors on a single product label.”

From the start, says Riggs, “Our bottles and tubes were instantly recognizable on a shelf, in a salon backbar, or in a bathroom cabinet. That ‘dopamine shelf’ effect is still part of our equity today: you can spot amika from across the aisle, and people often display the products instead of hiding them away.”

packaging—plus

Packaging has always been much more than decoration for amika. Riggs tells Beauty Packaging, “It’s been a brand engine, a form of organic guerrilla marketing, and a visual cue for our values of joy, inclusivity, and high performance. In the early days, our packaging created instant recognition in salons and backstage environments.

While professional haircare shelves were dominated by clinical whites, blacks, and silvers, amika showed up with bold, layered florals and saturated color—the kind of packaging that made someone walk across the room and say, “What is that?”

Stylists would display the products at their stations simply because they loved how they looked, explains Riggs. Consumers asked about them before they even knew what they were for. “That curiosity,” she says, “became one of our earliest and most effective marketing tools.”

original artwork & a superfruit ingredient

amika’s whimsical artwork was created by the brand’s co-founder, Vita Raykhman, who was inspired by amika’s hero “superfruit” ingredient, sea buckthorn berry—an ingredient she grew up with in Eastern Europe and knew for its incredible restorative properties.

Sea buckthorn grows in some of the harshest environments in the world—the Himalayas, Siberia, the Tibetan Plateau—yet it thrives. Riggs says, “Vita imagined this bright orange berry bursting with life in a barren landscape and designed a pattern that mirrored that sensory experience, with organic shapes, radiating color, undulating florals and sunbursts, and energy and optimism in visual form.”

The pattern includes “hidden icons” that speak directly to the brand, including:

“I love hair” illustrated through an eye + heart + leaping hare; The curly skull, a symbol meant to show that hair can thrive even in tough conditions; abstract sunbursts referencing sea buckthorn; and organic floral shapes symbolizing growth, diversity, and movement.

Over the past 18 years, the pattern has evolved to accommodate collection-specific color families and more navigable systems for retail and professional environments, but the core DNA has never changed. Riggs says that the amika logo has remained the same since Day 1; the sunburst flower remains one of their most recognizable brand elements; and the color language still evokes optimism, inclusivity, and creativity.

While formats and structures differ by category, Riggs says, “The colorful, joy-forward amika DNA runs through everything we make.”

Some collections lean into specific color families or slightly simplified patterns to help navigation on-shelf (for example, repair vs. hydration vs. volume), but the prints, the sunburst/floral motifs, and the optimistic palette are constant threads.”

“amika products work hard, and our packaging sparks joy, and that combination is rare.”

Chelsea Riggs,
CEO and founding member of amika

sustainable packaging

As a certified B-Corp, Riggs explains that the brand sees packaging as a key lever in its Friend to the Future platform. “Our approach,” she says, “is grounded in progress, transparency, and continuous improvement rather than perfection claims.”

The focus is on:

• material choice: prioritizing recyclable materials and increasing the use of post-consumer recycled plastics (up to 90%) and FSC-certified paper. We design for carbon footprint reduction, working toward Net Zero by 2035.
• design for circularity: clear recycling cues on pack, simplified components where we can, and ongoing work to improve recyclability in real life, not just in theory. We’ve worked with Terracycle and now with Pact to recycle the hard to curbside recycle.
• footprint reduction: lightweighting, right-sizing, and avoiding unnecessary outer packaging. We do LCAs on every package before we launch, choosing the lowest impact possible while ensuring the best customer experience.

Riggs tells Beauty Packaging that they began shifting their packaging with sustainability in mind “well before it became industry table stakes, aligning with our broader clean and ESG commitments.

“We work with a mix of domestic and internationalsuppliers, chosen for quality, compliance, and innovation capabilities, while always keeping an eye on minimizing environmental impact and maximizing consistency globally.”

She says this includes relocating the majority of their components stateside to lower their emissions from shipping, and sourcing their hero ingredient (sea buckthorn berry) from a fair trade, organic farm in Tibet.

packaging highlights

As Riggs explains, “2025 was a year in which amika packaging didn’t just stand out—it showed up everywhere. Our packaging continues to be one of the brand’s strongest organic distribution channels.”

Riggs points to a major highlight in 2025—the launch of amika:miami nectar limited-edition collaboration with Ellis Brooklyn, “which brought a fresh twist to our iconic patterning.”

For this collection, Riggs explains, amika leaned into the whimsical, “hidden icon” nature of their graphics and introduced a suite of Miami-inspired elements: beach umbrellas, pineapples, dolphins, poolside motifs, and even playful flip-flops woven seamlessly into the floral artwork

The result was “a collector-worthy” visual identity that went viral on social—especially within shelfie culture, GRWMs, (Get Ready With Me) a popular social media trend where creators film themselves doing their daily routines like makeup, choosing outfits, or preparing for an event, often chatting casually, creating a relatable, behind-the-scenes feel for viewers on platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram and content creators who gravitate toward packaging with personality and color.

teamwork approach

How does the amika team engage in a new project?

Riggs says, “Our process is highly collaborative and very hands-on.” Concept and insight start in-house with Brand, Product Development, Education, and Creative at the same table, often with stylist advisory input. Formulation is led internally, and then we work closely with external chemists and manufacturing partners to bring them to life.

Packaging is developed in parallel, not as an afterthought—structure, graphics, and storytelling are built around the user experience and the formula’s needs. “The end result, says Riggs, “is products where the formula, the package, and the story feel inseparable.”

what’s next for amika?

2025 was the launch of amika:aura, the brand’s first-ever hair and body mist, based off their signature amika scent that’s used in all of their haircare products. Riggs says, “As the most requested amika product of all time, it has already become one of the top five products in our entire portfolio since debuting in August.”

She explains that aura “represents a fresh evolution of our packaging language: modern, monochromatic, and elevated, while still unmistakably amika.” The bottle is saturated in a vibrant amika pink, topped with a sculptural cap inspired by the brand’s iconic brand flower, and finished with a surprise pop of amika orange hidden beneath. “It’s playful, collectible, and a natural extension of the expressive design DNA our community loves,” says Riggs.

Looking ahead, Riggs says we will continue to see amika deepen its strength in treatments and styling—two of the most performance-driven categories in haircare, and the areas where amika’s clinical credibility and sensorial design resonate strongest. “However,” she adds, “we are exploring what we call “increasing share of shower” to bring amika DNA into more places in our customer’s routine.”

Overall, says Riggs, “We remain a hair-first brand, but we’re always listening to our community. Any future category expansions will follow the same rule we’ve had since day one: start with a real need, deliver serious performance, and wrap it in joy.”

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