About Mei

I started writing about hair because I was tired of every "straight hair" article assuming straight hair is low-maintenance. It's not. It's just a different kind of high-maintenance that nobody warns you about — the oil, the flatness, the way it shows every single bit of damage like a receipt you can't throw away.

I'm Chinese-American, born and raised in the San Gabriel Valley, now based in LA proper. My mom kept my hair in the same blunt bob from kindergarten through eighth grade, no exceptions, no layers, no discussion. When I finally got control of my own hair in high school I immediately went and got it layered and highlighted, which was a mistake that taught me a lot about what thick straight Asian hair does when you surprise it.

In college I discovered keratin treatments and genuinely thought I'd found the answer to everything. Then my stylist switched to a formula that was technically "formaldehyde-free" but still made my eyes water in the chair, and that sent me down a research rabbit hole I never came back from. Five years later I'm still in that rabbit hole, except now I get paid to be here.

I focus a lot on scalp health because that's how I was raised. My mom treated her scalp like skincare before that was a trend — serums, oils, weekly treatments, the whole routine. She was right about all of it. I also talk openly about hair thinning because it's incredibly common in Asian hair and the silence around it is wild. If you're noticing your part getting wider, you're not imagining things and you're not alone.

When I'm not testing scalp scrubs or comparing K-beauty hair masks, I'm probably reorganizing my product shelf by ingredient type. My roommate thinks it's unhinged. She's not wrong.