Two names, one thread
Two names — Esther and Ruth — and the thread that runs between them: preparation in private, patient labor, and a moment of becoming.
Esther was prepared in secret for months before she was ever seen, and rose at exactly the right moment. Ruth chose loyalty when she had every reason to leave, gathered what others overlooked, and was gathered in because of her steadfastness.
Esther & Ruth exists for the season in between — the one perimenopause opens up, where your hair, your hormones, and your sense of self are all shifting at once, and nobody warned you it would take this much preparation to feel like yourself again.
“Ruth” is also a quiet play on “root” — the whole brand is built on treating hair, and this season, at the root.
Why I Built This
I was raised by a single mom. To keep three girls fed and housed, she worked behind the beauty counter at Shoppers Drug Mart — Canada’s version of Walgreens — on minimum wage, for years. And she still came home every day loving products. Loving the ritual of them. She was never precious about money, but she was precious about this: take care of the inside of yourself, and let the outside shine because of it, not instead of it. That, and the piano. Those are the two things I remember most about my mother.
I built three tech companies. I went through a divorce that left me with a mountain of debt. Through all of it, I still took care of my skin and my hair — it was one of the few rituals that stayed mine no matter what else was falling apart. And then I turned forty, and almost overnight, none of it worked the same way anymore. My hair changed. My skin changed. My body changed. It didn’t ease in — it just arrived, all at once, like a door closing behind you before you’ve had a chance to look back.
I went looking for products built for exactly this season, and there was nothing. So I started combining things myself, trying to hold onto what I had — and eventually I just cut it all off and started over. I remember standing there asking, genuinely: what is this new hair? Where did it even come from?
That question is this company. I wanted something clean. Something that actually celebrated women instead of quietly apologizing for what was happening to them. Something that supported the restart, instead of pretending it wasn’t happening. I spent years after that researching the cleanest, most effective formulations that actually work for perimenopause and menopause — not repackaged products for twenty-five-year-olds, built from the ground up for this one.
Esther & Ruth is named for the women who carried me through some of the hardest seasons of my life. Most of all, it’s for my mother — who raised three girls on minimum wage and still made room to love beautiful things. The Grace Field Fund carries her full name, Marilyn Joan Hadfield, because everything this company gives back to women starting over, it gives back in her honor.
The Women of the Season
Each product is named for a woman known for her own season of waiting, transition, or renewal — the way a fragrance house names individual scents after muses.