John Paul DeJoria

In 1966, John Paul DeJoria’s first wife left him and their two-year-old son. She took all the money they had, as well as the only car they owned. As a result, DeJoria couldn’t pay rent of his apartment, and was forced to evict it and live on the street with his infant son.

In 1993, he married Eloise Broady whom he met on a blind date. DeJoria has six children, three of them from Eloise.

He is a supporter of Food4Africa.In 2008 he joined Nelson Mandela in his efforts to feed over 17,000 orphaned children through Food4Africa. In the same year, he provided over 400,000 life-saving meals for the children. In 2009, he founded Grow Appalachia, an organization that helps promote healthy food and teaches farming skills.

Born as John Paul Jones DeJoria on April 13, 1944, in Echo Park, a neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, he was the second son of an Italian father and a Greek mother. He was two years old when his parents divorced. Hence, to support his mother, he started selling Christmas cards and newspapers at the age of nine, along with his older brother.

He grew up in Atwater Village on Garden Avenue, and later in Revere. So he went to Atwater Elementary School and John Marshall High School. He graduated from high school in 1962. When his mother failed to support him and his brother, they were sent to a foster home in East Los Angeles.

As a directionless teen, he became a member of a street gang, but decided to mend his ways when his high school math teacher told him that he would never succeed in life unless he give up the dark life.

At the age of 17, John Paul DeJoria joined the United States Navy as USS Hornet and served for two years. When he got out of the Navy in 1964, he didn't have the money to go to college. So he worked as a salesman for Collier's Encyclopedia. In fact, he did a string of jobs, including as a caretaker, a door-to-door salesman of shampoo, and also an insurance salesman, over the next few years.

He acquired knowledge about hair care products when he worked at Redken Laboratories in 1971, as a representative selling hair care products. After a year and a half, he started looking after two divisions—scientific schools and chain salons. In 1975, over a disagreement on business strategies, he was fired from the job.

Next, he joined Fermodyl Hair Care, where he trained the management and sales force on how to sell. Despite the sales going up by 50%, he was fired, as the company said that he didn’t fit in.

He joined the Institute of Trichology and started selling their hair care products. He earned $3,000 a month and 6% commission on the new business he brought in. After a year, he was fired as the company couldn’t afford his salary anymore.

In 1980, his hairdresser friend Paul Mitchell was also struggling, so they decided to start a business together, and founded John Paul Mitchell Systems on a loan of $700. They decided to develop products for professional stylists that would help to reduce time needed to do a client's hair. The first products they created were a single-application shampoo and a leave-in conditioner.

John Paul DeJoria is best known as the co-founder of the John Paul Mitchell Systems (Paul Mitchell) range of hair care products and styling tools. Along with being a multi-million dollar company, the organization is also known for its ethical principles—in the early 1980s they became the first professional beauty company to take a stand against animal testing.