Intelligent Nutrients Founder Horst Rechelbacher on IN and his new Harmonic Hair Care Line

Intelligent Nutrients founder Horst Rechelbacher is one of those interesting personalities you can’t quite fully put your finger on. Whatever you’ve read and heard about him is likely only partly true, a fragment of a constantly evolving picture. In my candid conservation with the Aveda founder, he revealed himself as equal parts organic guru, eco-entrepreneur, student and activist.

Rechelbacher is quite disarming, charming and very polite. He speaks with a slight accent, which belies his Austrian roots. He talks of herbs, seeds and oils with in-depth knowledge and passion.  He explained that his mother was an Austrian herbalist who ran an apothecary. She nursed him when he fell ill from days at his hair salon in the 1960s, when hair sprays were made with toxic chemicals such as PVC (polyvinyl chloride).  After several weeks of drinking his mother’s herbal concoctions, he felt much better.  “She said, let’s do some products,” he recalled. “I can help you.”

He formed Aveda in 1978. By the time Estee Lauder came knocking on his doors with an offer to buy the company in 1997, Horst was at a turning point in his life. “I evaluated,” he said. “My children didn’t want the company. I was sort of burning out from the corporate madness.”  He ended up selling the company to Estee Lauder for $300 million.  He went on sabbatical to finish his studies on plants and their healing properties.

In 2008, he developed and launched his latest effort, Intelligent Nutrients, an extensive line of body and hair care products, supplements and functional foods.  The Intelligent Nutrients Anti-Aging Skin Care line (which consists of four organic items: Anti-Aging Cleanser, Anti-Aging Mist, Anti-Aging Serum, and Anti-Aging Moisturizer) and its hair care line is USDA certified organic.  Its base is the “Intellimune complex”, a blend of organic seed oils, cumin, acai, argan and other essential oils.

Earlier this year, he also launched Intelligent Nutrient’s Harmonic hair care line for clients who wanted natural hair care that performs more like conventional products, and is priced less than its organic counterparts. Rechelbacher stated that the Harmonic hair care line was created “with a lower price point and with the reassurance of non-toxicity.” He added, “It’s all plant-based chemistry except it isn’t certified food.”

I told him that many of our customers are curious about the line but had some questions or concerns about some of the ingredients, particularly the preservative “phenoxyethanol.”  He stated, “We get asked a lot about it. It’s a preservative. When we formulated the Harmonic Shampoo and Conditioner, the goal was to make a high performing product which can be sold at a lower price point. It was specifically made to rank low in Skin Deep Database.”  (Phenoxyethanol ranks a 4 in the Skin Deep Database and is classified as an irritant with limited evidence of skin and immune system toxicity.)

For his part, Rechelbacher said that if consumers “have concerns they shouldn’t buy it.”  Consumers, he said, “have the right to choose whatever product they want.”  However, he insists that each product in the Harmonic line is “a very benign, non-irritating product. It’s definitely nontoxic.”  He said that independent laboratory studies confirm that the product is safe.

“It is a very clean product and it functions beautifully,” he said. “I don’t make any organic claims [with the Harmonic product line]. I do make non-toxic claims.”

At Bella Floria, we’re smitten with the entire USDA certified organic Intelligent Nutrients Skin Care line and all the signature USDA certified organic Intelligent Nutrients hair care products.

But because we believe that customers should have choices, Bella Floria offers Intelligent Nutrients Harmonic hair care products – The Harmonic Shampoo and Harmonic Conditioner and travel size harmonic products.

Also, stay tuned for a more in-depth interview with Horst Rechelbacher to be published in Bella Floria Magazine later this summer.