Inside Matilda Djerf’s New Beauty Line, Djerf Avenue Beauty

There’s a reason Matilda Djerf’s hair is so big, like Gretchen Wieners says in Mean Girls. It’s full of secrets. Until now, that is.

This morning, the Djerf Avenue founder and online It girl announced she’s stepping into the beauty space with the launch of Djerf Avenue Beauty, her new grooming business. Complete with two styling products, Djerf Avenue Beauty has been a labor of love for the 26-year-old Sweden native. Everything, she explains on a call with Who What Wear, was meticulously intentional. Let’s be frank: given her status and online popularity, she could have rushed to put out a beauty line and have it sell-out almost instantly. But, for Djerf, it was more-so about getting it right than compromising her standards.

“We have been able to build up a really beautiful community with Djerf Avenue, and now we’re able to launch beauty, it feels , like it should have been a strategic plan, but it was kind of a happy coincidence,” Djerf tells us over Zoom, chatting from her headquarters in Stockholm. “if it took two years or four years, it really didn’t matter to me.”

While Djerf and her co-founder-slash-life-partner Rasmus Johansson first approached the idea of starting a beauty line in 2021, the Scandi’s main motivation for her new Breezy Styling Mist and the On The Go Styling Gel, she admits, comes from a selfish place. “I was just missing these two products from my cabinet,” she explained, nodding to her long history with working with beauty brands and not being fully satisfied with anything she’d tried out. After cutting her bangs (and going viral on Pinterest) in the late 2010s, Djerf knew that the two to three products she had to use to force her hair into submission simply weren’t to work for her routine eventually. ” It felt like too many for products for me to pack when I’m traveling. I have enough clothes and shoes in my suitcase— I can’t possibly bring my whole beauty cabinet..”

Djerf Avenue Beauty launch, Matilda Djerf beauty line

(Image credit: Courtesy of Djerf Avenue)

The styling mist doubles as a texturizing heart-protectant complete with wheat protectant, aloe vera, and sunflower seed extract, while Djerf’s double-sided styling gel acts as a shiny, frizz-proof sealant, perfect for creating her signature slick-ban bun on your way to the office or post-workout. They seem pretty simple on the surface, but like all things with Djerf, there’s an executed, calculated science to make everything look as effortless and easy as possible.

Apart from using 100% recycled PCR packaging, Djerf and her team shopped out the idea of creating the best product at the lowest possible price-point for months. They eventually landed on a Swedish manufacturer in Djerf’s backyard. A small circle of business partners, close friends, and fans of the brand tried and tested out the products for months on a range of different hair lengths and textures to ensure that, like most things Djerf Avenue strives to create, it’s for everyone.

After a stellar run in 2023, it doesn’t look like Djerf and her team are stopping anytime soon. A beauty pop-up opens, in partnership with Dyson, opens in New York City for a week starting on March 27th. While the two styling products are the first things to be on the menu, Djerf says, there’s more in the pipeline to come as the line builds and grows alongside with her. If you see things like shampoo, conditioner, and body products in the future and want to spend all of your money on them, don’t say we didn’t warn you.

“It’s been really challenging to keep this a secret, right? Every single time I’m using the products, I just want to share it, I just want to talk about it with everyone,” she admits. “I’ve learned even more now that things take time and you have to trust the process. If you want to produce something that you’re passionate about and that you love, you have to also trust that it’ll take time—maybe a lot—but that that’s okay.”