Whatever hair advice I’ve spent my life looking for, it unexpectedly arrived Thursday afternoon in the midst of a call with Priyanka Chopra Jonas. The actress, lately starring in the Netflix movie The White Tiger, was speaking from London, where she and her husband, Nick Jonas, have camped out for the past year. During that time, a restless Chopra Jonas got a fresh set of bangs. “I don’t know why, but I feel like ‘sad writer’ means bangs,” the actor told Marie Claire, citing an upcoming character she’s set to play. Funny and true, I agreed on the phone, wearing my own set of fringe.
But really, Chopra Jonas said, “I think bangs are so fun, and I’ve discovered this new thing which maybe you should try.” This is where the fantasy began: the vision of a carefree road trip, head lolling out the window. “I take the blow dryer, and I set it to be windswept from the right and then windswept from the left,” she said of her no-brush technique. Now this is my kind of movie-star hair.
Today, with the launch of Anomaly, Chopra Jonas delivers the other necessary component for low-maintenance—and low-impact—hair care. The name of the eight-piece range speaks to the current embrace of individuality. “I’m an anomaly, and everyone else is in their way,” Chopra Jonas put it—however much her particular uniqueness paved the way for the Miss World 2000 crown, a thriving career across Bollywood and Hollywood, and a new memoir that she managed to draft in early quarantine.
The ethos of the brand, available exclusively at Target beginning February 1, is similarly global in scope, with unfussy bottles made of 100-percent recycled plastic along with a dry shampoo in eco-conscious aluminum. Meanwhile, the clean, vegan formulas are designed to accommodate various hair textures and needs. Chopra Jonas uses the Hydrating shampoo, infused with coconut oil and aloe vera, in times of heat-styling overload, and the charcoal-and-eucalyptus Clarifying wash to rinse away product build-up; the Smoothing conditioner helps tamp down frizz. Everything is priced at just $6. (That goes even for Anomaly’s Deep Conditioning mask—enriched with castor-seed and avocado oils—which my boyfriend, unprompted, rated as the best hair product in our admittedly well-stocked shower.)
That kind of accessibility is meaningful in the midst of an economic crisis. It also resonates with themes in The White Tiger, Netflix’s raw tale of class inequity and ambition, based on Aravind Adiga’s debut novel. Chopra Jonas plays a woman named Pinky who is familiar with both sides of the divide. Pinky recalls doing her homework in the basement of her immigrant parents’ bodega in Queens; by the time we meet her in the movie, set in India in the early aughts, she’s married to a wealthy landowner’s son, with a nonchalant ease that stands in stark contrast to the life of their provincial driver, Balram Halwai (Adarsh Gourav). There’s a pileup of inequities. He mistakes the “internet” for something you can pick up at the market. He discovers toothpaste. In a stealth moment in his boss’s bathroom, he mists his armpits and wrists with fancy air freshener, only to shudder at the price tag.
That sticker shock will play out differently for Anomaly at Target. Ahead, she talks about that broader mission, love songs for the shower, and Kelly Kapowski’s incomparable bangs.
Vanity Fair: You wrote your memoir, Unfinished, in early quarantine. Did that experience unearth any memories related to hair—whether family rituals or experiences in Bollywood?
Priyanka Chopra: There’s a really funny story in my book about living with my aunt in America when I was in high school. There’s a folk-lore story in India—it’s an old wives’ tale, almost—which is if you [untie] your hair at night, you can get possessed. I remember when I was 15 years old, I used to go running on Charlesbank Road in Boston—in Newton, actually—and I’d leave my hair down and wear short shorts. I was feeling myself because I had really long hair down to my waist. And my aunt used to tell me, “Go tie your hair! A ghost is going to possess you. You’ll get possessed.” It was so funny. I was, like, “No. Indian ghosts are not going to be chasing me all the way to Newton.” I used to get a lot of attention because of my hair. I had lots of long, curly hair. She was trying to get me to put it in a bun or a ponytail so I wouldn’t attract much attention. But I wanted the attention.
During these months of downtime, did you make space for any different maintenance rituals?
For sure. I started taking personal-care time, wellness time every week. At least twice a week, I’d use a hair mask; I’d do an oil massage once a week for my scalp. I’ve gotten into the habit of working out at least five days a week now. That happened during quarantine! Before that I would never do it. I started scheduling that time—and eating healthier, drinking tea. I’ve always been an espresso and a coffee girl. I drink six espressos a day, but now I’m, like, All right, I got to calm down and drink a chamomile tea [laughs].
The White Tiger is reportedly number one right now on Netflix, which speaks to its universal themes. Did those larger ideas—about accessibility and what defines luxury—shape your thinking as you were positioning Anomaly in the market?
Absolutely. I think that beauty should be affordable. Everyone should have access to it, and it should not be based on gender. Who decides? If you look at beauty products right now, each one of them will scream which gender they are trying to attract. That was really important to me. I wanted hair care that was for everyone, inclusive of everyone. And I wanted it to be sustainable because the beauty industry really needs to take responsibility for the fact that we really create a lot of waste—and it’s high time that we take that responsibility.