On Taking Your Time with Dianna Cohen, Founder of Crown Affair
EP 41

On Taking Your Time with Dianna Cohen, Founder of Crown Affair

Show Notes: 

One of a person's most distinguishing features is their hair. Dianna Cohen's luxury haircare brand, Crown Affair, crafts love letters to hair and self-care through their intentionally made hair-care products. Today, Dianna shares the integrity of her brand vision, how she stays inspired, the journey of haircare, and the power of ritual. 

Staying inspired and active as a founder can be a difficult balance to strike. Dianna shares how she connects to inspiration daily and her favorite places to look. The key to striking this balance is tapping into what excites you and staying clear on your goals. Dianna reminds us that great things take time, from building an empowering hair ritual to building a powerful brand, and the practices along the way matter the most. 

Dianna discusses how she created a culture within Crown Affair built on feminine energy and empowerment. She intentionally approaches time by never rushing, returning to the present, and moving slower. These philosophies underline Crown Affair’s workplace culture and products. Throughout her career, intuition has played an important role in her business decisions and trajectory. By learning to trust her intuition and her team, her business has expanded more than she could have imagined.   

A key part of showing up as our most empowered self every day is how we engage in grounding and embodiment practices. Diana’s favorite daily grounding habits include stretching, reading, looking at art, journaling, gua sha, and brushing her hair. She especially enjoys being in her partner’s calming presence. Having a steady partner can really support the nervous system during times of chaos as an entrepreneur. Committed to helping women feel their best, in this episode, Diana shares ways to lift ourselves and each other. 

 

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on your favorite podcast platform. 

Topics Covered:

  • Rituals to stay inspired
  • The journey of great hair
  • Reflections on time
  • Demystifying haircare
  • Role of intuition in business
  • Diana’s daily rituals 

Resources:

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Show Transcript:

 

Tonya Papanikolov  0:04  

Hi, welcome to the Rainbo podcast. I'm your host. Tonya papanikov. Rainbo and I are on a mission to upgrade humanity with fungi and expand the collective conscious. This podcast builds a virtual mycelial network of bold, open minded thinkers and seekers. I chat with experts, thought leaders, healers, scientists, entrepreneurs, spiritual teachers, activists and dreamers. These are stories of healing, human potential and expansion. Tune in root in expand and journey with us. Diana, thank you so much for being here. Good morning,

 

Dianna Cohen  0:50  

good morning. So happy to be here. Thank you for having me.

 

Tonya Papanikolov  0:53  

Oh, it's my pleasure, yeah. How are you today? I usually I love to start every podcast asking what you're grateful for.

 

Dianna Cohen  1:00  

Oh, I'm feeling very positive today because most of my day has surprisingly opened up. So when I have, like, free, creative time, that always makes me really happy, not feeling the pressure of like the to do list. So in that regard, I feel really good. I'm grateful for waking up next to my husband this morning. That's my favorite part of the day. That's so

 

Tonya Papanikolov  1:22  

wonderful.

 

Dianna Cohen 1:23  

What are you grateful for

 

Tonya Papanikolov  1:25  

today? I'm feeling just really grateful for my body. I feel like I've been like, kind of fighting off this UTI for like, a week and a half, and I just like, I don't know, I just drank so much water, I meditated before recording with you, and I'm just feeling like, oh my gosh, this thing is so brilliant and intelligent, and I get to inhabit it and like, just, I don't know, I sometimes just like life and having a human body and this wild experience is like a good reminder that's beautiful. Okay, you got into it already. And I'm like, I just want to talk to you all day. I love talking with founders. And just like the balance, we're going to talk about so many things, I admire you and crown affairs, so so much, and what you've built. So I want to chat about some business, brand building vision, how you stay inspired the journey. I think there's so much to unpack. Why don't we kind of start with, like, you know, something that I'm just personally curious about is how you're balancing, like, staying in that inspiration state and keeping the vision alive, and really holding the balance between the demands of the day to day and the forward thinking vision.

 

Dianna Cohen  2:41  

It's definitely an art balancing at all. And as you know very well as a brand founder, you go through seasons with it. So some quarters you'll have so much like creativity and freedom, and you can just kind of ideate, and then other quarters, it's like, what are the goals, what are the deliverables? Maybe you're fundraising, maybe you're launching in a retailer, and that feels a little bit more blocking and tackling of the to do list, a little bit more of the masculine energy. I definitely prefer to sit in my feminine and be creative like we're going to be five years old in January of 2025 it's just crazy, and I do think back a lot to the early days of what it felt like to start building this business and start to build the brand. And I don't miss it, but I try to tap into that feeling. And thankfully, as the company has grown, I've actually been able to do that a lot more than I used to do. I would say early days is a magic time, but probably between, like, year two up until, like, really, a couple months ago, I was really in the nitty gritty of the day to day. 

 

Dianna Cohen  3:47  

And even over the last year and a half, that's lessened. So as the business gets bigger, as my team gets bigger, I'm given more space to be creative. And it's very clear that my goals are actually about inspiring and keeping a vision, versus being on every call, signing every document you know, negotiating every deal. So that is one of the many beautiful things about getting bigger and growing as you just have more brilliant brains and hands to help you and give you the space to lean into your superpowers. The way that I stay inspired, it's really so much of my personal love is I love art and I love reading. Like, those are the two things that just make me feel good. So that could be as simple as, like, one of the first things I do in the morning after I do kind of my self care rituals, is I'll read something that inspires me. And it doesn't need to be, like, an hour blocked for reading. It can really just be five eight minutes, and that could be a book that inspires me, that could honestly be like a beautiful coffee table book I was just thumbing through. My sister got me this beautiful Porsche. The car company does these beautiful guides every year, and they did one of Tokyo, and I she got it for me for my birthday. My favorite gift is like coffee table box. I. Because I go to them all the time as a resource. So, yeah, you know, even just spending eight minutes, five minutes diving into that, you know, reading the language and seeing the visuals like it really does keep me inspired more aspirationally, going to a museum in the morning, or going for a walk somewhere, and journaling like, those are things that I know keep me going, and some days I don't have as much time to do them, but I do absolutely follow and do my rituals every day, even if it's not like the full dream Sunday situation.

 

Tonya Papanikolov  5:36  

I know, yeah, this season is always busy end of year. But the other week I was, you know, just like, a week of, like, so many calls, and then I had one day where I was on a zoom with, like, just super successful entrepreneur who was sharing his story, and he's, like, gotten to such incredible places with multiple businesses and just sharing all these stories. Like, you know, it took us eight years to get to a million dollars in sales. And I was like, Whoa, like, you know, like, Whoa. That's really, yeah, like, it's just, it was so interesting. And so what I realized, because it was just such an inspiring call, I was like, oh, it's really just, like, I, in order to fuel myself, I need to make sure that there is input of inspiration, because it can get, I just love what you said. It can get really, I guess just you're in the details, when you're kind of going from, like, call to call to call, and that can really drain me. So I really resonate with that. Like picking up a book random page, and like taking a couple minutes with that?

 

Dianna Cohen  6:41  

Yeah, no. And I think as entrepreneurs, you get into this because you're motivated and you're fueled by something. And one of the learnings for me over the last few years is just not setting such high expectations for myself every single day. Like, not every day is going to be a super creative day. Like, sometimes it's actually just about catching up and doing admin and doing email, and I'm not going to be able to, you know, quote, achieve all these creative endeavors. And then some days I, like, don't want to look at my inbox and I just want to, like, go for a walk and draw and, like, that's okay, too. So I think it's a lot of the unlearning that, like, days need to look a certain way, or that like doing is different than being But that takes time. And by the way, I'm not naturally great at it, and I definitely gravitate more towards doing, but that often leads to, like, procrastinating and busy work that feels like I'm being productive, but I'm not actually like moving the needle forward in a meaningful way. Yeah,

 

Tonya Papanikolov  7:36  

I'm doing a time study right now where I like, write down everything I'm doing in 15 minutes, which is, like, also a bit of a nightmare for me, but I'm like, No, I'm doing this. I'm like, like, really, like, really, want to evaluate where it's going. And that's been really cool. I don't know if you've ever taken any time to, like, do that, but it's helping me be like, okay, like, what are the really, like, highly important things. Like, How long am I spending in strategy and bigger vision versus, yeah, smaller tactical tasks, I guess, yeah,

 

Dianna Cohen  8:08  

you know, I'm really bad at it doing kind of like free hand tracking. In theory. I'm like, Oh, I spent 40 hours a week doing this, and 20 hours a week doing this, and I have, like, a high level percentage outline, and I have spent time with my coach quarterly mapping where my time goes. But I haven't actually been like, oh, I spent four hours writing a substack today because I think it would genuinely be demoralizing at how long, realizing how long it takes me to actually do stuff. I think that's my biggest like thing I'm grappling with right now is like, Oh, wow. Like, it takes me so much longer than I wish that it did, but I do do hour. If my husband hates me secretly, I, like, will put an hour on my phone just to, like, keep track of time. Like, if it's 7pm and I want to start winding down by 10, like, I'll put the hour clock on my phone, because you really start to be like, Whoa, these tenants are moving. So in that capacity, I find it helpful. Otherwise, like, the time will just disappear, and I'll be like, where the three hours go? Yeah?

 

Tonya Papanikolov  9:02  

Well, that kind of leads us to what I wanted to talk about next was just like the take your time, which is something that Crown Affair. It really resonates with me. And everything you just said, Do you know what your human design is? I'm so curious.

 

Dianna Cohen  9:15  

I don't know. I've gone on the website a few times. I think I'm a generator, okay, but maybe I'm not. What is we should do this after. Can you help me?

 

Tonya Papanikolov  9:26  

We're gonna do this after. I do this for people. So I'm like, I need to know what Diana is so down, yeah, well, no, and it's just the piece around taking your time and how it takes you a long time to do certain things. I'm kind of the same, and I love, like, my favorite thing is just falling down a rabbit hole of something so niche and random and like, discovering what's there. And there's a lot of like, magic, and I think interesting moments that come from those places when we let ourselves do that anyways, it's kind of a human. Design thing. But yeah, I would love to hear more about take your time, how that it's such a beautiful, I think, essence, and it just weaves in with your brand and hair into so many aspects of things that really resonate with me. And I'm just also curious to hear how it applies to business. Thank

 

Dianna Cohen  10:15  

you. There's a few answers to this. The first one is that I do genuinely believe that great things take time, and we see this in all areas in our life, like whether that's meditation, activity, practice, nutrition, journaling, relationships, like even romantic ones. Like my friend reminded me when I first started dating my husband 11 years ago, he said to me, he goes, No one ever got mad at a slow simmer, and I never forgot that, and we jokingly listed all the things that are better when they're low and slow, whether it's like scrambled eggs or like for me, it's just about the reality of pacing yourself and a reminder that these things Take time more tangibly, like hair is a journey, and myself included, have definitely had a haircut or two that I was not enthused with or was going through a stressful time and realized that, like, my hair texture was changing, and the only metric we have when it comes to taking care of our hair in particular, Is time, and you need to give yourself grace. And the industry for so long is like, achieve this look in this minute. Walk out of the salon, feel great, but feel really disempowered when you get home, either because you don't know how to take care of your hair, you don't know how to style it the same way that the professional style that. So it's this, like, permission to give yourself that grace in a category that's actually very trial and error, and people don't actually take that time and they get frustrated and they reach for the hot tool, or they reach for the thing to like fix versus care. So that I just thought was really powerful. 

 

Dianna Cohen  11:57  

And my creative director for launch is a Japanese artist named shou Shibuya. He paints on the New York Times every day, and he's just an incredible artist. And we worked together many years ago, and when we were working on the brand, we just kept coming back to this concept of time being like a for us, like, the most fascinating topic, like, I love reading about time, yeah, like, I love films. I mean, even something this popular is, like Marvel films. And the idea of like these timelines, or like local like, I think time is just so fascinating. And even talking about earlier, how we spend it, tracking it, our perception of it as a species, like, it's really so fascinating. So to me that means, like, Crown Affair is built on, like, a very pun, intended, timeless concept, versus it being like, Oh, we're clean and we're sustainable and we're this and we're for this type of person, it's like, no time is like, so universal. So it allows us to really play with different concepts. The thing that's also really cool about it is, I joke that I like, put it on every packaging and everything to, like, remind myself to slow down. 

 

Dianna Cohen  13:06  

And actually, there was a line that came to me last year in my brain. I remember I was like, slightly dozing off, and I just was like, nothing needs to be rushed. And that is kind of my new internal mantra, like, take your time. Nothing needs to be rushed. The funny thing with it is there's also, like, on the product side, there's actually a bit of an implicit the word back at the end, take your time back. Because if you take your time on the front end, you actually get more time back. And it's the same with like, presence and meditation. If you take your time to learn your hair and you figure out how to air dry it, or feel a little bit more confident in it, or, like, give yourself literally six months or a year to, like, grow it out and stop damaging it, like you're actually gonna get time back in the long run. So that's really what anchored the brand. On the business side, it's been really interesting. And I will say one of the things I'm most proud of, and it's, it's not my own doing, it's me, plus Elaine, who's been with my president, who's been with me for over five years now, since pre launch, and we've really created a culture within the business that I comes from places of feminine and I do, I never want to create an environment of fear. I came from those cultures. 

 

Dianna Cohen  14:17  

And, you know, I would say, like looking back and reflecting, there's probably positives too. I think it made me learn so much in those environments. But when it comes to our team, especially with the pandemic happening six weeks after launching, and I know that's when you and I originally connected, and it's like you had this big shift of putting people first and empowering people through positivity and like, really wanting the best for them, versus, like, fear of moving fast and breaking things. It's like, yeah, we're building a business. We want to keep growing. We want to hit our goals. To me, that's so table stake like, it's like, you know, everyone we hire our whole team, myself, like we all want. Do excellent work. So why would you pressure someone to do excellent work? Like, it's, it's so in the fabric of who our team is as people that, like, we actually need to remind ourselves to be like, dude, take a vacation. Go chill. Like, slow down. We have a whole thing called Take your time day. Or every month, our team can do a take your time day. And that could be because, you know, if you're on, like, the marketing team, you might have done an event on a Saturday. So like, take a Monday. But, you know, we also work from home with a hybrid culture. I think the future of sustainable work and preventing burnout is in moving a little bit slower, but with intention. So that's also, like, take your time is also a core value within the business and our team too.

 

Tonya Papanikolov  15:43  

Yeah, that's been something I've been sitting with a bit too, and I'd love to chat about, you know, any phases of burnout you've been through. But my experience with it has been that when you're doing the things that really light you up, and you're in your spending your time in your zone of genius, or at least some part of your day in the inspiration, or whatever that looks like for somebody, those are the things that help stave it off. And it's funny to hear your mantras, because I also have one related to time, which came to me a few years ago, and it's now is the time. And for me, it's like there is like immediacy in the present moment, and that anchors me and helps me, just like whatever it is kind of sees it. So it's funny, we all have these kind of like, well, I don't know, but all of us, but I similarly, am so fascinated by time, non linear time. Can we? I don't know if you've ever had any deep meditations or experiences or out of body altered states where you kind of go back and you realize that in some of the backwards motion of maybe it's a memory, or it's like ancestral like, I really do believe that beyond you know what our Estee like, what we can really comprehend and in the physical world, that we can go backwards and we can experience that just by closing our eyes and like thinking and using our mind to go to those places. So it's really fascinating to me.

 

Dianna Cohen  17:16  

I totally agree. I love that your mantra has so much action to it to like be pulled right into the present moment. That's something that I think is inherently within me. So I have a million tabs open at once. Emotionally, yeah, I emotionally meant to leave 500 tabs, and I am very honestly proud to be a leader who has ADHD, because I think it's a superpower, and I really learned to, like, hone in on it. And I have 700 books around me. I have a messy desk, like I'm kind of the opposite of totally pristine environment. I like the creativity and the chaos. So for me, take your time. It's like, I love what you said earlier, where it's like, you go down these rabbit holes. And for me, it's like, and that is why things take time. I like absorbing all of these things, so the dots connect in the most cohesive way. I think what I'm learning, and I'm so happy that I worked on the brand, you know, almost six years ago now, because there are so many layers of meaning in the brand, and you keep going deeper in the rabbit hole. I think one of the things I'm navigating Now, like all of us, if you're on the internet, is that even the really intelligent customers or audiences don't have the attention spans that they used to. So you wonder like, oh, is everybody understanding or getting the reference, or getting the joke, or understanding how these dots have connected when, I think, as a culture, people are gravitating towards things that are simple, and I've always like whenever I overthink a sub stack post or an Instagram because I want people to feel something, I remind myself like it's probably it's not that serious. I want it to be serious. It's not that serious, but people just don't have the time. That's like, the irony and the thing that I'm navigating now with the time element

 

Tonya Papanikolov  19:05  

totally attention spans.

 

Dianna Cohen 19:07  

They're gone. They're gone.

 

Tonya Papanikolov  19:12  

They're gone. It's a fascinating time to exist in. I actually, I feel like we're quite similar, in that sense, pretty typical. I feel like of entrepreneurs that were not the like, neat ones. I'm actually like, I would not have somebody in my home right now. Yeah, is your husband an entrepreneur?

 

Dianna Cohen  19:29  

No, and it's funny, the only reason I would have someone in my home, I would have someone in my home, they just cannot come into my office. The rest of my home is Christine, because I'm married to an OCD Virgo who does not like, Yeah, dude, it's life changing, and he's had the same job for 15 years. Very slow and steady rock. So I'm always vocal about that with other entrepreneurs. I'm like, it's very nice to have, you know, I've been able to definitely like emotionally and take risks and do things like. Just because he's such a organized, rocky cooks, he cleans. People are like, how do you do it all? Like, I don't I have a partner who makes sure that I have a warm meal and my clothes are clean. So it's, it's pretty life changing, and I'm extraordinarily grateful for that. Is your partner? Is he? Is he an entrepreneur? So wonderful, yeah,

 

Tonya Papanikolov  20:22  

well, okay, so he, he's an engineer by trade, so he has a highly organized mind in a lot of ways, and just very intelligent. But we're both entrepreneurs, so our home is messy. Love, it just a reality. But, yeah, he also, like, does so much cooking. He, yeah, he left his business. They kind of, he was building something for nine years in the kind of blockchain, just FinTech space, building out digital currencies for lots of countries throughout the world. And he's in finance, and he's actually stepping in more now with rainbo, and he's also a musician and is beautiful and like artist, it's really wild blend of, I haven't seen somebody hold that level of, like, holy shit. You're like, literally the smartest person I've met, and very creatively capable. But yeah, so he's been stepping in with rainbo and kind of like, just taking on so much of the finance piece, which is a dream for me,

 

Dianna Cohen  21:18  

being an engineer and a musician sounds like a very magical mix of brain superpowers that I do not have, but I admire the same,

 

Tonya Papanikolov  21:29  

same here. Okay, I would love to talk about hair a bit more and like, what's been your journey with it? I mean, it's just, it's such a personal everybody has such a personal story and experience with it.

 

Dianna Cohen  21:41  

Yes, hair, to me, is kind of everything like it truly is my security blanket. It changes the way I feel. I recently had my hair cut a little bit short. It's starting to grow out, and I've just been scalp massaging and doing our scalp serum and really, really nourishing. It even more so than I normally do, which is already a lot to begin with, but it's really crazy when you don't, for me, when I don't feel dialed in my hair, or like my hair is the best version of itself, like it just feels a little bit off, honestly, like I used to. Part of that is growing up. I had not great skin, so I really relied on my hair to, like, feel confident, and in that I really took care of it. Part of it's my mother, like she used to brush my hair every night growing up in South Florida, you know, going into the ocean, going into the pool, like we had a bathroom that had all these, like hair masks in it, and like combs. And I just grew up around the care piece, and even on the beauty side, like my my mom, I remember getting my first massage when I was really young, and going to acupuncture when I was like 11, which was unique at the time, totally, especially in a small town in south Florida, not like LA or New York. Totally, 

 

Dianna Cohen  22:59  

my mom has always really, like, instilled in me these rituals and thinking about my body in holistic way. Because of that, I always saw my hair as like a reflection of my well being. And as adults, you start to correlate these things, right, like gut issues or inflammation or even hormones, being like, Oh, I have acne on my chin. Like, this is because of something going on in my body. And I don't think we always correlate that with our hair or hair health. So, you know, I've been really mindful. I brush it pretty much every single night, which works for my hair type, because it's wavier. I don't brush it on the first night. I usually brush it like 234, and I don't know. It's just I've always really cared about it, and because of that, I've like, been the weirdo friend who, like, did all the research and, like, tried all the stuff. And friends would ask me, and like, long before crown of fairy, everyone texting me, like, What products do you use? What would you get? And I would send them. This was before affiliate link. So the internet, yeah, I also, I also the internet was around. It was just different than it is today. 

 

Dianna Cohen  24:00  

But I was an into the gloss back in 2012 and like, whenever we had anything about hair, I always just, like, lit up. I also really enjoyed, I used to transcribe all the interviews on the site. I also loved, like, the fragrance interviews too. And like, learning about, you know, the brain behind the nose and just how people think about that, which was funny, because I feel like, culturally, more people were always more into makeup and skincare. And I always kind of felt like the outlier being like, I really like hair, and I think fragrance is so fascinating psychologically, you know, too. Also just had friends who have gone through really personal journeys with their hair, whether that's going through chemo or post pregnancy, navigating postpartum hair loss or stressful periods. And I've just always kind of joked really been like the hair therapist, and I think it's because I approach it like a really different way than a traditional stylist. And I love, I mean, I've been seeing my stylist for 13 years. I have such a deep respect for hair stylist, and I really view what they do as art, but what I care about so much is like hair is a part of our identities, and making it the best version of ourselves. As just normal people at home. And I just found that, like, the products I was using from the salon were really luxurious, but they just, like, weren't making I really had a style a lot on the back end, and they definitely weren't, like, great for the help of your hair, when you broke down the ingredients, yeah, here's interesting, because it's like, this category of like, oh, this is for curly hair. This is for this, but you're like, but why is it for that? We're like? In skin care, you're like, you use this ingredient for oily skin, or use this ingredient for dry or whatever. You use hyaluronic acid, use retinol. But in hair care, you're like, it's just for this hair type, and you're like, What? What is doing that? 

 

Dianna Cohen  25:35  

So I think demystifying it as a fiber and kind of getting nerdy about it. There's so much science in what we do and so much innovation. I tried to lead, actually, with like experience and brand over like hashtag science, which there's so many great brands that do that. I think it's implicit, but maybe I'm assuming that the customer knows that. Like, it takes us two and a half years to formulate truly innovative products that don't exist. And, you know, the other thing for me, too, I realized, is, like, the way that I talk about hair with friends, and, you know, like, if we talk about hair, it's very different than how, like, the industry talks about it. And the main thing being, like, I don't wash my hair every day. Like, what does this actually look like day to day? So for me, it's the innovation also comes through formulating products that get me one more day to wash day. You know that that's a dry shampoo or a gel that you can brush out and just making things feel like soft and touchable and not like sticky, tacky, alcoholy, like all the stuff that hair care has traditionally been for very long, for that phase, yes, yes, your hair is in your hair? I remember seeing your hair for the first time and then seeing you in person the other day. I'm just like, Goddess, it's just such a part of your essence. It's so powerful.

 

Tonya Papanikolov  26:50  

Thank you. It's so funny. I was wearing a wig for Halloween on the weekend, went to a party, and the people that were with first of all unrecognizable, like, like, a different, like, it's, it's, it really is because it's, yeah, it's just very much a part of who I am, for sure, but, um, wearing this little Bob was just like, it's hilarious. Like, people were like, you're completely different,

 

Dianna Cohen  27:14  

yes. Well, that's the thing. Hair is just a shape. It's just a silhouette. And that's what I think is so powerful about it, is that it actually can be the first thing that someone identifies you by, which is why I've always been so surprised that people don't always take more pride in it. I mean, I'll meet beauty editors who jokingly will be like, don't judge me. I don't have a hair care routine. You know, these are people who have such thoughtful routines and try everything and really making, for me, having a reliable esthetic and a reliable shape is really comes down to the formulas and tools and my rituals around it. And yeah, it's, it's crazy, and I love that you did that. And doesn't it change the way you move through the world? Like having a fun Yeah, or whatever, the different thing, yeah, yeah. It was, it

 

Tonya Papanikolov  27:58  

was so much fun. But I felt the security blanket piece is like that really resonates, because it's always been masked, like just big, and it's also really cool too, from a health perspective, like what you were saying, just weaving in the time piece too. And maybe you know this, but there's a lot of doctors or functional practitioners who will take hair samples because the hair like stores time, it's kind of the best way to track different periods in the body and what's been happening from, I guess, just a longer term perspective, whether it's heavy metals, toxicity, yes, hormones, like you can get so much information, which is so

 

Dianna Cohen  28:35  

repair. Yeah, it's so cool. First of all, yes, and I've done it. I do blood work every six months. And I did my hair about a year and a half ago, I think, and it was fascinating. And I do like thinking about hair almost as like the rings of a tree. And like how a tree, you know, just like how it, how it grows, or even a plant, or however you want to use it, and taking care of it in that way. And even emotionally, like this sounds crazy, but like talking to it and being kind to yourself, like these things show up in your hair, and whether that's stress or anything that's going on in your life. So funny. I was talking to my friend who has this platform called function, and he was like, we need to do more. Yeah, my friend Jonathan is one of the co founders, and we were talking about how that needs to be more popular, although it's funny, I was at Erewhon in LA the other day, and I saw a sign that was like, get your hair. It was like a sign about me getting crazy. And I was like, I love that. This is here, but yeah, and they're like, you can get even nerdier about it, which is like, hair is literally, like the leftover fur on us humans, like, so to culture hair, like, hair is a fiber, like what it stands for, like what it energetically holds like, there's a lot you can get into with it. It's cool. It

 

Tonya Papanikolov  29:48  

is it is really cool. So how many times a week do you wash your hair?

 

Dianna Cohen  29:52  

It really varies, depending on like, if I'm on vacation or where I am, I'd say twice a week on average is probably right. Like I usually. Like four days, and then I wash it. But in Miami, I live a pretty active life. So whether that's like in the pool, working out at the beach, I find that when I'm in New York and LA, I wash my hair like once a week. Yeah, that's fair. How about you? How frequently are you washing?

 

Tonya Papanikolov  30:15  

It depends on just what I have going on, but usually once a week, yeah, but it's like, by day six, I'm not, like, in my full confidence of my hair, because it's super tangly, and it's like, I need, if I was going out, I would have a I would wash my hair and, you know, and I can't brush it unless I want to have, like, more of an afro, which is cool, but, you know, it's, it's so much bigger. So it is. It's a dynamic thing.

 

Dianna Cohen  30:42  

That's why I love the hair refresh, though. Like, I constantly am like, leave in conditioner, a little bit of the dry shampoo. Like, it's like, the layer ability of the product, that's part of the formulation in them, is the layer ability to, like, get you to the next day, because so many leave ins are, like, heavy, greasy, weigh your hair down, or like, dry shampoo. Like, when I was using aerosol dry shampoo By day three, I was like, This is disgusting. Like, I need to eat this so gritty. It's also terrible for you and your lungs and your hair follicles. Like, the hair Refresh is so real, and it kind of takes a second to figure it out. But like, day six, obviously won't look the same as day one, but like, you can get it there also, like you have so your hair length is unbelievable, and you have so much volume. For me, I'll also do like, a very elegant slick back, and knowing that I have, like, the gel or the finishing spray without it being harsh, and I can brush it out that night without it being crunchy or flaky. Like, again, it's like every product is literally a tool to, like, extend until the wash day, and then the wash day be this, like, really beautiful ritual where your hair is, like, fresh and is funny. I track this stuff. I have a journal where I like, track what days I wash my hair and like, my entire ritual. I

 

Tonya Papanikolov  31:50  

love that so much. I use my towel every wash day. Simon knows it. It's my favorite. It is my favorite tool. Also the scent. I don't think I've told you, but, like, I'm obsessed with your scent. It's perfect.

 

Dianna Cohen  32:04  

Thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah, I'm

 

Tonya Papanikolov  32:07  

a really big scent person as well. I have, like, I'm notorious for not telling people. It's, like, a hilarious secret that started off as a joke, and now it's just kept on since I was, like, in my 20s. But people will ask me the perfume I'm wearing, and I and I never tell them, I'm like, That's my secret.

 

Dianna Cohen  32:23  

Yeah, the crowd affair said, first of all, thank you. I We worked really hard on it. At first, when we formulated it, I wanted it to blend and mix well, because we formulated it for hair, assuming people would have a body fragrance or other fragrance of in their life. And I think because of that, it actually compliments a lot of different people, and like, blends very well without being, like, such a statement on its own. It's almost like fresh and sexy and light, but cool and it's great because, like, I smell my husband after he gets out of the shower, and I'm like, you smell amazing? Or like a girlfriend after I see her on the way to judge, like, I just washed my hair, and it's just like, yeah, good. I thank you.

 

Tonya Papanikolov  33:02  

My sister and I talk about it all the time. We love it. Okay, so I wanted to go through a few more questions with you. What role has intuition played in your business? How you make decisions? The masculine feminine piece is something I sit with a lot. And I think intuition is like, truly, one of those magical and essential ingredients in a business and in an owner so curious your relationship with it. It's

 

Dianna Cohen  33:33  

everything. I feel like my entire career has been intuitive, even prior to Crown Affair, like sending that email to Emily Weiss being like, I will literally do anything to work with you and for you. Like that was back in 2011 that I sent that and like, I just knew that I needed to learn and grow and be there, and then every single role after that was going with my gut before things were even big in the way that they could be. I remember meeting Eric Katz, the founder of seed, at a party that I was invited to from a previous employer that I, like interned for, and meeting her, like this mythical goddess Olson, like human that was just like at this event, and just gravitating toward just spending the whole night talking to her. I was 19, I was 20. I must have been 20, I don't know. And she reached out to me, like, a year later, and was like, I'm starting this company. It doesn't even have a name. Do you want to join me? And I'm just like, yes, you know. And that was like, right out of college, too. Especially, we're like, I want to work in a place that, like, has a name, where people know or, like, build out my resume. And I was just like, I'm gonna go with this. I'm gonna follow this, this intuition, this gut feeling of, like, wherever this woman is, I want to just that's the point of this. 

 

Dianna Cohen  34:53  

And my whole career, even with, you know, working with away, or working with Buck Mason, or working with. I mean, outdoor voices was very established by the time that I worked with them, but, like, generally, I think there is this, like, intuitive feeling of just wanting to be around people doing really cool, interesting creative things, and with Crown Affair and knowing when to launch it, which is a question I get asked about a lot of like, when did you know to launch it? I had my creative agency. I was doing brand strategy with levitate for about two years, and it was a trip to Japan that I was like, I'm ready to like, I know exactly what I want to build and how I want to build it. And I came back, and I kind of slowly rolled off my clients. I didn't sign any new ones, and I just started working on Crown Affair. And that's when I called show, and I called my handful of people that I worked with in previous roles. And, you know, I didn't even have a ton of money to, like, pay people at that time I hadn't raised at the time, it was just like, I think for all of us, so much of that's just intuition and and wanting to make an impact and do things that excite us. 

 

Dianna Cohen  35:59  

So, you know, when it comes to the business, it's shifted a lot. I think when you are working with an incredible partner like a Sephora, there's a lot more planning, and there's a lot more structure, and there's a lot more of a playbook that being said. You know, our business, I'm really focused on direct, and everything that we do on our direct channels ultimately ladders up to all of our partners. So there's a lot of intuition around like what feels right, and Crown Affair, part of it's just like what I love, and I know that you're the same with rainbo. It's like so much of the essence of who you are is in the brand. So I think that makes it very easy to not second guess, because you know what you're making for yourself. Yeah.

 

Tonya Papanikolov  36:41  

Have you had moments of trusting someone else's opinion and being like shit? I knew, I knew, I knew the right way to do it, or like it not go to plan, because I have moments where I'll, like, doubt myself, and I'll be like, you know that you know that thing like you didn't need to. Yeah, trust that other person

 

Dianna Cohen  37:00  

the only time that it's happened, because, and I'll tell you why, like, when I say only is really around hiring, where I've been, like, I don't know if this person was totally the right fit, but I trusted and then they proved to not be totally the right fit. It's only happened twice, and, you know, we've never had anybody like, actively leave crowd affair. It was just like, I knew that it wasn't the right time for that person to be at this business and timing is everything. But otherwise, honestly, like, we've done a really good job with our leadership team of, like, having very clear divisions and accountability and final decision makers. 

 

Dianna Cohen  37:32  

So I am not the final decision maker on, like, anything ops related, you know. So I don't have a ton of gut feelings around it, because I genuinely am, like, there's a ton of leash. Do your thing. If you make a mistake, that's okay, like, and I don't kind of lament or harp on it if that and things have happened where we've made decisions, but candidly, I didn't really have any intuition around it, because it's not my area of expertise, where the things that really matter to me, product development, brand choices, I ultimately have, for the last five years been the decision maker, and I know that that will change as the business continues to grow, and even as we brought on Sephora, we've brought on someone who was our Merchant at Sephora and worked at Sephora for 10 years. So like, two years ago, things that I used to have strong opinions on with visual merchandising, and I would be like, put my foot down and be like, it has to be this way. I'm like, Oh, I don't. I was not a merchant for 10 years, and I don't know. So like, even if that feels a little off to me, yeah, I'm actually learning this is crazy. What I'm about to say sometimes, if things feel a little bit off, it means that they're actually going to do better. Because what I've learned is, like, if I continued to just post bonsai trees and Japanese gardens, like the company isn't going to grow, you know. So it's been a process of, like, letting go, and the essence is always there. And I think that's what my team does so well is like, okay, the Diana of it all is like, in this, but like, let's make this easier or more intuitive for other people, because maybe what's intuitive for me, is not intuitive for others. So

 

Tonya Papanikolov  39:02  

yeah, that's, that's a beautiful way to go about it too, because you're also, yeah, as leaders, like, being able to trust your team and empower people to make decisions is so essential. I'm going through that right now too, with some shifts that are happening, and also just realizing, like, I forget who it was. But like, you know, there's a finite amount of decisions that one can make in a day before you're completely taxed. And so when everything is coming up to be like, Okay, what do you think here? What do you think here? You're just kind of like, like, I've spent, actually, I've made, like, 30 decisions today.

 

Dianna Cohen  39:36  

Yeah, trusting your team is the most important thing to do, and it's hard, I think, as a founder, in some ways, it's a practice. It's not hard. It's a practice totally and it requires work, and for me, it's required coaching and therapy and support. I know that trusting your team is the thing to do, because it's been a really effective with Crown Affair, but also for 10 years prior to. Crown Affair. I watch founders not lost their team. And by the way, like I can spot from a mile away, like, what a founder like, I know who you just can tell the culture of businesses and companies. And I think a lot of customers would be surprised, like, I've seen it before where, like, we're like, oh, that was my dream company to work for. And I'm like, you can just tell, by the way, though, the only reason I know that is because I worked for 10 years as an employee, you know. And I think not having that experience allows you to realize how important it is to like authentically, trust people, and keep in mind that at the end of the day, like, we are selling a product that can change people's lives and make them feel better, but we're also just selling things, and like, you need to remember the journey and the process and empower people. And don't come from a place of fear, because every other company I worked at where that was the case, it just never yielded the best results. 

 

Dianna Cohen  40:51  

So totally people and people are going to make mistakes. You have to trust people and know that they're going to make mistakes. But like, trying to control it, and I really do think it's an art. And I to be honest with you, I don't have many role models. I'm trying to rebuild what it looks like to be a leader in this day and age. Or, like, you give people space, you trust people, they can have hybrid work culture. Like a lot of it's in the magic of the hiring, but it's also in, like, how you show up as a leader like that is the, probably some of the greatest work I've been able to do the last five years is like, grow as a leader and just trust people. And so far, it's working, but it's it requires practice. Yeah, it's hard.

 

Tonya Papanikolov  41:30  

It's so fascinating, because, similarly, like, I've had to do so much therapy, yeah, so much coaching. Like, it's such a gift. I feel so grateful and lucky for that, but it's like, it's a really nuanced experience. I feel where you're like, very much like, I know, I know this is the right thing. I know this is how I want to show up, and yet it's also clouded with these feelings I need to move through. I don't know if you can relate with that, but it's like, it's, it is, it's such like an unpacking and like, really continually. I guess there's just a lot of personal work involved. And I don't know if I would have known that, and I love personal work, but it's like, yeah, yes.

 

Dianna Cohen  42:11  

So much personal work. And again, who's my president, and I share a coach, and we'll do kind of like couples coaching, if you will. And the funny thing is, like, nothing's wrong, like, we're both pretty conflict avoidant, but that's exactly why we need coaching, is to, like, hold that space, and when I look at who we were as people five years ago and where we are today, as great as it is to see the growth of the business, it's almost more remarkable to see the growth of who we are as individuals. And I'm so proud of her. Like, how you move through the world in work is also reflective of your personal life and your relationships. The running joke is like, when someone starts at Crown Affair, and if they have, like, a kind of SO, SO partner, like, they're gonna break up with them. Because I'm like, You're amazing, you know? 

 

Dianna Cohen  42:56  

Yeah, I really believe in making people realize how incredible they are. And like Elaine in particular, I genuinely support her with every fiber of my being, and I want her to shine in her personal life, and I want her to be like, I'm the main character, you know. So that's been really fun. There's a quote by a French philosopher that I think about a lot as a leader, and it's something it's translated, so it's probably much more beautiful in French, but the translation you could teach man to build a boat by brick, or whatever, you know, plank by plank, or you can teach them to long for the sea. And if you teach people to long for the sea, they're going to figure out how to build a boat. And actually, like, I'm going to hire someone who's way better at building boats than me. So it's like, it is my job to make everybody long for the sea, because it will get done. I shouldn't tell people how to do what they're probably better at doing than me. Totally.

 

Tonya Papanikolov  43:48  

I love that. I'm gonna bring that into my day.

 

Dianna Cohen 43:52  

Teach them to long for the sea, yeah. I

 

Tonya Papanikolov  43:54  

love that. Teach them to long for the forest, exactly. Yeah. Tell me about some of your daily rituals, practices. I know you do morning pages or you have but, yeah, I would love to, love to hear about some of how you fill your cup up

 

Dianna Cohen  44:09  

dream world as I'm doing morning pages every day. But that is not my reality. The one thing that I have to do every single day is stretch. That is, like, probably my primary form of meditation. I've been trying to really get dialed in with my meditation practice. And I've done 40 day stretches, and, you know, 30 day stretches, and I still have it, and I definitely find meditation as a part of my identity. But stretching unlocks this portal in my body that just makes me feel so connected. And there's actually a coach about six years ago now, I was going in a little bit of a spiral, and she was like, Diana, what do you need right now? And I was like, honestly, I need to stretch my legs. And she's like, I think stretching is like a thing that just makes you. Stop and pause. So I already stretched this morning, did my pigeon pose, did a couple flows, vinyasas. I think that's the thing. 

 

Dianna Cohen  45:08  

With all this stuff, it's like, I'd love to go to yoga class and do morning pages every day, but I don't always have the space for that and with everything that I'm doing, so even 15 minutes of like stretching, a couple flows, it just kind of like, connects you to your body. Journaling, meditating, I do Gua Sha twice a day. You know, scalp massages, brushing my hair. I'm kind of corny. I have a whole list in my notes app where I just, like, do my you know, top everything off every day. Those are the main things. Reading is another big one that like reading even for a couple minutes a day. Like I said, those are the things that make me feel me I'm okay with movement. I would say 2025 is the year that I'm really trying to lean into more consistent activity. I do, like, two classes a week, and, like, go for a run here and there. But I'm not, like, I am excited for that to be my thing, and also cooking as well. Those are, like my two things for 25 that I would love to start re shifting my my headspace and my mindset on them. What are some of your big things?

 

Tonya Papanikolov  46:10  

I love that my big ones are journaling as well. Mostly every day I have gone through phases of morning pages. But my I like to just journaling is just kind of free flow. I do meditate, I practice Kundalini Yoga, which I love. And walks I find are like my version of stretching. I love to stretch this wall, but like a walk for me when I have a lot on my mind, or sometimes last night, for example, I was just like feeling really obsessive, like, I couldn't stop, couldn't stop working. And I'm like, That's so interesting, because it's like passion, but it's also like, Okay, you just need a break. So walks are really helpful exercise, which has also been somewhat sporadic for me. There's a reformer studio nearby, and that just makes me feel I'm better with low impact I can't do. Like, yeah, it's just doesn't work for my nervous system. So reformer makes me feel really strong. And I love I love it, yeah, and like, quality time with Simon, I'd say is, like, especially because now that he's in it, in the businesses a bit as well, where, like, we talk about it so much, and even when he wasn't, he's kind of just, like, I verbally process, and I bounce things off a lot, so quality time, nature, yes, yeah,

 

Dianna Cohen  47:26  

everything. Now, I resonate with all of those things so much. And to I mean, I've said this in the context of Alex and him being, you know, a steady rock with my husband, Alex. But is it like me being able to take risks, but truly at the end of the day, or if I'm still buzzing like Saturday, it really takes me a day to kind of decompress from the week, and he'll just, like, physically hold me so I like my frequency, like, just like, comes down, and it's so key. It's so key having someone, whether it's a friend or a partner or a pet, that can kind of take you out of that frequency that you're in. You know, totally

 

Tonya Papanikolov  48:06  

I call Simon my rock as well. Is like such a steady energy, which is, what a gift, a gift. Since you're on the rainbo podcast, do you have any mushroom favorite mushrooms experiences?

 

Dianna Cohen  48:23  

I have a few. I do really love mushrooms. You know, it's really funny, both experience feeling and also consuming. Mushrooms are my favorite vegetable, and they've always been my favorite since I was a young child to know that the past like which ones? I mean, honestly, my mom would literally make me, like, shiitake mushrooms. As a kid, I was a weirdo. As a child, like my mom, my daily sandwich was like, I really thought I was Harry at the spy, and I would eat like, tomato she used to have like, tomato and mayonnaise sandwich, but she also ate cream cheese and olives and like, Oh, I was just a little mushroom kid. I mean, my mom would literally make me, oh my gosh, you are a fairy. I wish. I hope I'm a fair. I think I'm more of an L, but also very

 

Tonya Papanikolov  49:05  

I see, I see both. I see both. Everyone's always called me a fairy. And I like, you are being post about it, and I'm like, Oh my gosh, yes, that is her energy.

 

Dianna Cohen  49:13  

I love light and sound, and I love being transported to places that feel magical and like there are a lot of references within Crown Affair that are very much in the forest. And it's actually quite hilarious that I grew up in sunny South Florida, because I definitely feel most comfortable in a forest or a garden like those are my spaces and visuals. And if I could live in like a labyrinth garden, I would forever as a fairy, probably, or a forest as an elf. So I think mushrooms are so powerful. And the fungal networks, I mean, you know, so much more than I do. I've watched a few documentaries like the very known ones, but I think it's incredibly powerful. And I love having, like, mushroom tea. And also, just like the visual literacy of mushrooms is, like, so stunning. And layers, yeah, the tones, the colors, like, you know what they're called, The like, folds underneath, I It's like the gills the top. Like they're these, like magical ground jellyfish. Like they're just so beautiful. Big fan of mushrooms. Like, across the board, all elements of them.

 

Tonya Papanikolov  50:21  

I love hearing that. Thank you for sharing, yeah, thank you so so much for spending some time with me this morning and your wisdom. I would love to close just offering some space for you to share one, prayer, wish, hope, putting something out into the world for our listeners. Before I

 

Dianna Cohen  50:43  

get there, I just want to say thank you for having me and creating such a beautiful space that really, truly calmed my nervous system. I feel like I could listen to you all day. You know how it is you wake up and it's Go, go, go. And I was very much looking forward to this to kind of ground me as I enter my creative day. My wish for all of us, especially as women, is to shift our mindset towards abundance and realizing that there's genuinely room for everyone. Because I've started to do that more over the last year, and I've noticed a shift in myself, and again, it's something that requires practice and give yourself grace that you feel that way. I think I'm like a really positive, supportive human, but I still have those thoughts when I see things that trigger me, and it's just because of the way society is. So acknowledge those thoughts and realize that those thoughts are not you, and just keep your blinders up and keep doing your thing. We'll all get to the end in the way that we need

 

Tonya Papanikolov  51:43  

Very much needed to hear that. Thank you.

 

Dianna Cohen 51:46  

Thank you

 

Tonya Papanikolov  51:49  

with deep gratitude. Thanks for tuning into this episode. If you liked it, hit subscribe and leave us a review that is always very appreciated. Mushrooms transformed my mind and body. And if you're interested in bringing medicinal mushrooms into your life and health journey, check out rainbo.com for our meticulously sourced Canadian fruiting body mushroom tinctures. Until next time, peace in and peace out. Friends, you

 

Keywords:

The Crown Affair, Dianna Cohen, haircare, hair routines, hair rituals, beauty rituals, feminine, female CEO, female founder, inspiration, morning pages, read every day, work-life balance

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