Paula Kent Meehan

Early Life and Background

Paula Kent Meehan was born on July 9, 1932, in Denver, Colorado. Details of her childhood remain relatively sparse in public record, but she came of age during the Great Depression and World War II, a period that shaped a generation of resourceful and determined American women. As a young woman, she pursued acting, relocating to Hollywood and appearing in a number of television and film roles during the 1950s under the name Paula Kent. Though her acting career was modest, it placed her directly within the entertainment industry's orbit—an environment saturated with beauty standards, professional styling, and intense scrutiny of appearance, all of which would later inform her entrepreneurial ambitions.

It was through her personal experience as an actress that Kent Meehan encountered the professional hair-care products of the era firsthand. She grew increasingly frustrated by the damage that many commercial and salon hair treatments—often highly alkaline and harsh—inflicted on hair and scalp health. This frustration, rather than any formal scientific training, became the seed of her future business venture.

Founding of Redken Laboratories

In 1960, Paula Kent partnered with hairdresser-turned-chemist Jheri Redding, who had developed early formulations for gentler, more scientifically balanced hair-care products. Together they founded Redken Laboratories in Los Angeles, California. The company's name, a blend of "Redding" and "Kent," reflected the partnership at its origin.

Redken's foundational innovation was its emphasis on pH-balanced and protein-based formulations—concepts that were, at the time, largely absent from mainstream and even professional salon products. Kent Meehan and Redding argued that hair, much like skin, had its own biological chemistry that needed to be respected and nurtured rather than stripped and re-processed with harsh chemicals. This was a genuinely novel philosophy in an industry that had, until then, prioritized styling results over long-term hair health.

The company distinguished itself by selling exclusively to licensed hairdressers and professional salons rather than through drugstores or mass retail, which helped elevate the professional status and expertise of hairstylists. This distribution model, combined with an emphasis on ingredient science and client education, helped position Redken as an industry innovator and trendsetter throughout the 1960s and 1970s.

Sole Leadership and Business Growth

Within a few years of Redken's founding, Kent Meehan and Redding's partnership dissolved professionally; she bought out his stake in the company (accounts place this in the mid-1960s) and assumed full ownership and leadership. This was a remarkable and rare feat for a woman in corporate America at the time—few women in the 1960s ran, let alone owned outright, companies of significant scale, particularly in an industry that was itself just beginning to professionalize.

Under her leadership, Redken grew substantially, expanding its product lines, research and development operations, and educational programs for hairstylists. Kent Meehan invested heavily in training programs and technical education, helping create a generation of hairdressers who understood the chemistry behind the products they used. This educational mission became a hallmark of the Redken brand and helped foster stronger, more professional relationships between the company and the stylists who used its products.

By the 1980s, Redken had become one of the most recognized and respected names in professional hair care, with a reputation for scientific rigor and product efficacy that outlasted many industry fads. The company's success made Kent Meehan one of the wealthiest self-made businesswomen in America and a widely respected figure within the beauty and cosmetics industry.

Sale of Redken and Later Business Life

In 1993, Paula Kent Meehan sold Redken Laboratories to Cosmair, the U.S. licensee of L'Oréal (the company was later fully absorbed into L'Oréal's portfolio of professional brands). The sale marked the end of her direct operational involvement but not her association with the brand; she remained closely tied to its identity and legacy, earning the affectionate nickname "Mrs. Redken" among industry insiders and colleagues.

Following the sale, Kent Meehan redirected much of her energy, wealth, and business acumen toward philanthropy, investing in educational scholarships, cultural institutions, and community initiatives, particularly in the Malibu, California area where she made her home in later decades.

Philanthropy and Community Involvement

Paula Kent Meehan became known in her later years as a significant philanthropist. She supported various educational and cultural causes, including scholarships intended to help students—often women—pursue careers in business, science, and the arts, echoing the unconventional path she herself had taken from actress to scientific entrepreneur. She was active in the Malibu community, contributing to local civic and cultural organizations, and her name became associated with generosity and community-mindedness in the areas where she lived.

Her philanthropic legacy reflected the same values that had driven her business career: a belief in education, empowerment, and the elevation of skilled professionals—especially women—within their fields.

Personal Life

Paula Kent Meehan was married and took the surname "Meehan" from her husband, though detailed public information about her personal and family life remains relatively limited compared to her extensive business record. She made her home in Malibu, California, in her later years, where she was known within the local community as a generous and engaged resident.

Legacy and Historical Impact

Paula Kent Meehan's legacy rests on her role as a pioneering businesswoman who transformed a personal frustration with existing beauty products into a company that changed an entire industry's approach to hair-care science. She was among the first to bring rigorous scientific principles—pH balance, protein treatments—into mainstream professional hair care, helping to professionalize and modernize an industry historically driven more by trend than by chemistry.

As a woman who founded, grew, and ultimately sold a major American corporation, she stands as an important example of female entrepreneurship in a mid-20th-century business landscape that offered few women such opportunities. Her insistence on selling directly to trained professionals rather than mass retail also helped elevate the standing and expertise of hairdressers as a profession, a legacy still felt in the structure of the professional beauty industry today.

Redken Laboratories, the company she co-founded and later solely led, remains an internationally recognized professional hair-care brand under L'Oréal's ownership, continuing to be sold in salons worldwide—a lasting testament to the foundational vision Kent Meehan helped establish more than six decades ago.

Death

Paula Kent Meehan died on June 25, 2014, at her home in Malibu, California, at the age of 82. Her death was reported by numerous outlets, including The Washington Post, American Salon, and other beauty-industry and mainstream publications, each emphasizing her pioneering role in the professional hair-care industry and her later philanthropic contributions. She was remembered fondly within the beauty industry as "Mrs. Redken," a testament to how deeply her identity and legacy remained entwined with the company she helped build from the ground up.