By: Ice Somani
Lauren Ashtyn, the entrepreneur behind the luxury hair-extension brand The Lauren Ashtyn Collection, is expanding her reach into the hair-tool industry. With her recent acquisition of TYME, a legacy brand known for its signature multi-styling iron, Lauren Ashtyn is introducing a new era of hair health. The industry has long relied on high-heat “spectacle” tools that risk long-term damage, but Lauren Ashtyn’s new vision for TYME prioritizes hair integrity by focusing on controlled temperature and ease of use. Her goal is to prove that you don’t need extreme temperatures to achieve a perfect style, just the right technology and a bit of confidence.
Lauren Ashtyn’s philosophy was born from a sobering reality: for women with thinning or damaged hair, a lapse in judgment with a hot iron can be catastrophic. While the rest of the industry treats styling as a trivial daily habit, Lauren Ashtyn views it with the precision of a protector. She knows that for her clients, “minor” styling errors don’t just wash out in the shower; they leave scars on confidence and health that take months to heal.
“Working with women in hair loss changes the way you see the entire beauty industry,” she explains. “When someone is dealing with thinning, autoimmune issues, or postpartum shedding, you don’t get to treat hair like a playground. One wrong move can set someone back months.”
When Lauren Ashtyn looked at TYME, she saw a missed opportunity to advocate for the user. The TYME Iron was already a mechanical marvel, straightening and curling with a single flick of the wrist, but it was missing a soul. Lauren Ashtyn realized that while the tool had the versatility, it lacked the vulnerability required to speak to today’s hair-conscious consumer. She saw a way to take a “gadget” and turn it into a guardian for hair health.
“What stood out to me was the core idea behind the tool itself: versatility with one device,” she says. “That concept had real potential, but it hadn’t been fully repositioned for the modern hair conversation.”
Stepping into the driver’s seat of a legacy brand like TYME is a delicate tightrope walk. Lauren Ashtyn inherited a community of loyalists who swore by the “one-tool” simplicity that put the brand on the map. But she knew that for TYME to survive the next decade, it couldn’t just be simple; it had to be safe. She set out to honor the brand’s DNA of efficiency while radically upgrading its conscience, ensuring that the convenience of the past didn’t collide with the sophisticated hair-health demands of the future.
“You start by understanding why the brand existed in the first place,” she says. “TYME built a loyal community around the idea that one tool could simplify styling.”
Before she touched the products, Lauren Ashtyn overhauled the philosophy. She swapped out the industry’s traditional obsession with raw power for a focus on precision and protection. The new TYME isn’t about pushing hair to its limits for a fleeting style; it’s about engineering tools that respect those limits. By centering the conversation on responsible styling, she turned the brand from a standard appliance manufacturer into a genuine advocate for the woman behind the tool.
“The first shift was philosophical,” she says. “I wanted to move the conversation away from performance and toward responsibility.”
That philosophy comes directly from what she has seen while working with clients navigating thinning or hair loss. The beauty industry often celebrates dramatic before-and-after styling results, but those transformations frequently rely on aggressive heat or repeated manipulation that can damage fragile hair.
“When someone is dealing with thinning or loss, you realize how fragile hair can actually be,” she says.
Most CEOs look at data points; Lauren Ashtyn looks at lived experiences. Her leadership at TYME is a direct extension of those intimate conversations where hair isn’t just about “beauty,” but about the very core of self-confidence. Because she has seen firsthand how a single tool can either build a woman up or break her spirit, her decision-making process is filtered through a unique lens of protection. For Lauren Ashtyn, a product isn’t a success unless it respects the deep emotional weight her customers carry.
“I’ve spent years sitting face-to-face with women talking about something deeply personal, hair loss, confidence, and identity,” she says. “That proximity gives you a different level of empathy and clarity about what actually matters to people.”
The acquisition was the catalyst for a broader mission: ending the “one size fits all” era of hair styling. Lauren Ashtyn recognized that while the signature iron was a powerhouse, the diversity of her clientele demanded more. She is evolving the brand from a single-product success story into a versatile family of tools, each tailored to the unique textures and vulnerabilities of different hair types. She isn’t just expanding a catalog; she’s ensuring that whether a woman has fine regrowth or thick curls, she has a tool designed specifically for her survival and style.
“TYME had an incredible hero product in the TYME Iron, and it had already built a loyal following because of how well it performed,” she says. “But we also knew that for the company to reach its full potential, it had to evolve from being known for a single product into a true, recognizable brand.”
That realization reinforced a lesson many founders eventually learn: strong products may attract attention, but strong brands build longevity.
“A great product can get attention, but a strong brand builds recognition, trust, and longevity,” Lauren Ashtyn says.
Integrating TYME into her broader business vision also required a new level of strategic clarity, aligning teams, messaging, and long-term goals while still leaving space for the brand to evolve.
“One of the biggest leadership skills I’ve had to strengthen is strategic clarity,” she explains.
Lauren Ashtyn believes we are witnessing the end of the “spectacle” era of hair styling. The old guard of the beauty industry focused on the immediate, high-heat “wow” factor, often at the expense of the hair’s long-term health. Lauren Ashtyn is steering TYME toward a different horizon: one where technology is used to respect the hair’s internal bonds rather than break them. In her view, the next generation of iconic tools won’t brag about their top temperatures; they’ll be celebrated for their precision, their coolness, and their ability to style without the “heat hangover.”
“For a long time, innovation meant hotter tools, faster tools, or more dramatic results,” she says. “I believe the next wave of innovation will come from tools that prioritize hair health while still delivering beautiful styling outcomes.”
Ultimately, Lauren Ashtyn hopes TYME will help change the way women think about heat styling altogether. Instead of something used cautiously out of fear of damage, she wants the tool to feel dependable, something women can trust as part of their everyday routine.
“A lot of women have a complicated relationship with heat tools,” she says. “They love the results, but they also worry about what it’s doing to their hair over time.”
By shifting the conversation toward controlled heat and long-term hair integrity, Lauren Ashtyn believes TYME can offer a different approach, one that acknowledges the realities many women face with thinning, fragile, or changing hair.
Looking back, the acquisition felt like a natural extension of the work she had already been doing for years.
“I grew up in the hair industry, watching my mom build and run her own salon, so I’ve been immersed in this world for as long as I can remember,” she says. “As the owner and designer of The Lauren Ashtyn Collection, I had already built a brand centered around helping women feel confident in their hair.”
When she first encountered TYME, she says the opportunity was immediately clear. “The TYME Iron was an incredible invention, and I could clearly see both its value and its untapped potential,” she says.
For Lauren Ashtyn, the mission remains rooted in the same perspective that shaped the earliest days of her career: understanding that hair is never just cosmetic. It carries confidence, identity, and control.
Now, with TYME under her leadership, she’s applying that philosophy at a much larger scale, reshaping how styling tools are designed, marketed, and used. What began as one-on-one conversations with women navigating hair loss has evolved into something bigger: a brand built around the idea that styling should work with hair, not against it, and that beauty technology should protect the very thing it promises to enhance.
