Turning an Instagram Hustle Into a Dream Beauty Business

A hair-bleaching mishap in a laboratory circa 2015 led Klea Alexandra Pashaj on a path to find solutions to care for her over-processed hair. The journey eventually helped her realize her dream of starting her own beauty business—Alexandra Organic.

Fresh out of Polytechnic University of Tirana, Albania, with a degree in chemical engineering, Pashaj was looking for a whimsical new look. She bleached her hair six times in four months until it was “completely destroyed,” in her words.
 

Undeterred, Pashaj applied her chemical engineering background and Googled ingredients manufacturers in a quest to salvage her tresses. Further research prompted her to formulate a shampoo and hair mask that would not only become her BFFs in helping to strengthen and hydrate her breakage-prone locks, they would become Alexandra Organic’s best-selling products. 

“I wanted to do something to help other women who are blonde and who made the same mistake as me,” Pashaj, 29, told Happi.
 

After failing to secure funds from her father to start her own business, she took matters into her own hands.
 

“It’s very hard to follow your dreams as a woman in a country like Albania,” Pashaj explained. 
 

Pashaj began posting before-and-after shots of her hair’s improvement—thanks to her formulas—on Instagram. She was flooded with DMs asking where to buy the products. That Instagram hustle snowballed into what eventually became Alexandra Organic. The brand blossomed; soon she was selling cosmetics and skin care products in addition to hair care.

In six months, Alexandra Organic grew from $0 to almost $7,000 in sales, she said. 
 

For her traditionalist father, seeing was believing.  He introduced her to his chemist friends from Greece, where her brand’s products are currently produced. 
 

Within a few years, her line grew from two to 34 products, including a face serum, moisturizer, double-ended matte lipliner in six shades and a long-wear La Deésse Volume Mascara. The latter, which is manufactured in Milan, is housed in an applicator reminiscent of the Corinthian pillar – an ode to its production site – accented with a lotus flower. 
 

Alexandra Organic’s hair care products are formulated with a vitamin B complex, keratin, vitamin E, castor oil and biotin – ingredients that helped halt Pashaj’s own hair loss, encourage growth and repair follicles damaged by heat and chemicals.

In 2023, Pashaj attended New York Society of Cosmetic Chemists’ Suppliers’ Day and MakeUp in Los Angeles to introduce Alexandra Organic to the US. Today, her products are available via the Allure Store and Amazon. 
 

More color products are planned for 2025, but for now, haircare is the focus, Pashaj told Happi. Alexandra Organic plans to launch nine new hair care products including hair serum, perfume and spray this year.
 

Her dream retail partnership?
 

“Sephora!” she said. “I hope 2024 and 2025 will be a good trampoline for us.”