Meet the Founders: A Q&A With Natalie and Melissa

The two best friends behind Phil, in their own words

We get asked a lot of the same questions, about why we started Phil, what the name means, what it was actually like building a hair brand from scratch. So we sat down and answered them honestly, no polish, no rehearsed lines.

Q: How did Phil actually start?

Natalie: Pretty unglamorously, honestly. We're best friends, and within a year or so of each other, we both started noticing our hair thinning. For me it was stress. For Melissa, it was more just time catching up.

Melissa: We went looking for something that actually understood fine or thinning hair specifically, and everything felt like it was built for someone else. Too young, too glam, or too medical. So we did the thing you're never supposed to actually do and decided to build it ourselves.

Q: Why the name "Phil"?

Melissa: It's a play on "fill." That's genuinely the whole idea behind everything we make: fill in, not cover up. We liked that it was simple and a little cheeky rather than something overly serious.

Q: What was the hardest part of building the first product?

Natalie: Honestly, how many versions didn't work before one finally did. We flew overseas, visited more factories than either of us can count, and spent a full year testing wefts on our own heads. Wide wefts that sat on top instead of blending in, clips that looked fine but pulled by the afternoon, colors that were close but not quite right under real light. None of that makes it into a highlight reel, but it's most of what the year actually looked like.

Q: What surprised you most during that process?

Melissa: How much came down to small details. It wasn't one big breakthrough. It was narrowing a weft by a few millimeters, or switching to fewer, lighter clips, and suddenly it actually felt right. Small changes, but they were the difference between something that looked fine in photos and something that actually felt good to wear all day.

Q: What do you want someone to feel when they wear Phil?

Natalie: Like themselves. That's genuinely it. Not transformed, not fixed, just like a slightly more rested, more confident version of a normal day. We're not chasing a big reveal moment. We'd rather someone forgets they're wearing it by lunchtime.

Q: What would you say to someone who's never told anyone their hair is thinning?

Melissa: You're not alone in it, even if it feels that way. Roughly 40% of women deal with this at some point, and most of us have been handling it quietly, like it's something to hide. It's not. We built Phil because we wanted that conversation to happen more, not less.

Q: What's next for Phil?

Natalie: More products built the same way the first ones were, tested properly, made for hair like ours, not adapted from something built for someone else. We've got a receding hairline band on the way, and honestly, we're just getting started.

Q: Any final thoughts for someone considering Phil for the first time?

Melissa: We built this because we needed it ourselves, not because we spotted a gap in a spreadsheet somewhere. If any part of our story sounds familiar, we're really glad you found us.