Mielle, the textured hair care brand founded by Monique Rodriguez, signed Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts and Houston Texans defensive end Will Anderson Jr. as ambassadors on Oct. 6. The deal extends its year-old NFL partnership into men’s grooming.
What Mielle Announced with Hurts and Anderson
Mielle announced the signings in a press release datelined Cincinnati on Oct. 6. The brand called the pairing part of its “Tested by Real Life” platform and launched a campaign titled “Can’t Miss It.” The campaign consists of two films, one per player, that show each athlete’s preparation, routine and consistency. Mielle said the films would run on its YouTube channel and on its Instagram and TikTok accounts starting that week.
The two players use different products. Hurts uses the Rosemary Mint Pomade-to-Oil Scalp & Hair Quencher. Anderson uses the Pomegranate & Honey curl collection, including its curl defining mousse. Hurts, who described his own style as a bald fade, said there is a “detailed amount of preparation” in his grooming, and that caring for his scalp is part of it.
Anderson credited his older sister, Tiera, with teaching him hair care and introducing him to the mousse. Mielle’s founder framed the deal around men’s routines. Rodriguez said the partnership lets the brand “bring that lived experience to one of the biggest stages in sports.”
Kierston Jackson, Mielle’s senior hair scientist, supplied the product argument. “Football is a real performance test for textured hair,” Jackson said. She said sweat and friction under a helmet can affect scalp health and hair strength.
How the NFL Partnership Set up This Signing
Mielle became the NFL’s first official textured-hair care partner on Nov. 26, 2025, according to the brand’s announcement. That was 314 days before the Hurts and Anderson release. The league deal came with a social campaign called “Passing the Phone,” which featured players, agents, families and on-air talent.
The league deal was built on a stated audience argument. The November release said women make up about half of the NFL fan base. The player signings point at a different customer: men with textured hair who may not think of themselves as hair care shoppers. Mielle did not release sales figures for either campaign, and neither release gives the financial terms of the NFL deal.
Omar Goff, Mielle’s president, described the thinking in November. “Textured hair isn’t a niche,” Goff said, adding that it is central to the culture and the game-day experience. The brand’s own scale claims are consistent across both releases. Mielle says its products sit in more than 100,000 U.S. stores and ship to more than 90 countries.
The October release names CVS, H-E-B, Sally Beauty, Target, Ulta Beauty, Walgreens and Walmart. The November release said Rosemary Mint Oil has more than 75,000 five-star reviews. Spread across the 314 days since the NFL deal, that review count equals about 239 reviews a day, though the release does not say when the reviews were posted.
What the 12x Stronger Claim Does and Does Not Say
The October release says Mielle recently “enhanced” its Rosemary Mint collection to deliver “up to 12x stronger strands” when the full regimen is used as directed. The release gives no footnote, test method, sample size or comparison group for the figure. It does not say what the strands are 12 times stronger than.
Two details narrow the claim. The first is the phrase “up to,” which sets a ceiling and not an average. The second is “full regimen.” The collection page on Mielle’s website lists 11 Rosemary Mint products across washing, treating and styling. The release does not say which of them make up the regimen. Hurts named one product, the quencher, in his quote. That is one of the 11.
The brand’s own product pages carry no figure of that kind. The shampoo page describes the product as helping “support the appearance of longer, healthier hair” and cites no study. The quencher page lists no testing details either.
The ingredient list on the quencher page differs from the list Jackson gave. Jackson named pure rosemary extract, biotin, castor oil and vitamin B5 as the collection’s key ingredients. The quencher page lists sweet almond oil, safflower seed oil, beeswax and corn oil first, with rosemary leaf oil and biotin further down. Castor oil and vitamin B5 do not appear on that list.
The page describes the product as a hairdress that changes from a pomade to an oil, and it says to work a small amount into each section of the scalp. The quencher costs $9.99 for 5 ounces, or about $2 an ounce. The 20-ounce shampoo costs $15.99, or about 80 cents an ounce. Neither release gives a price for the film campaign or the player deals.
Who Owns Mielle and What Rodriguez Still Runs
Mielle is Black-founded and, since 2023, part of Procter & Gamble. P&G Beauty announced the purchase in a January 2023 Business Wire release. The release said Mielle would operate as an independent subsidiary and that Monique and Melvin Rodriguez would stay on as chief executive and chief operating officer. It did not disclose a price.
It said Mielle and P&G would each commit $10 million to Mielle Cares, a nonprofit focused on education and economic opportunity in Black and Brown communities, for $20 million combined. Rodriguez said at the time that the deal would let Mielle serve more textured hair consumers. The NFL deal and the Hurts and Anderson signings are the kind of national marketing that opportunity implies.
The November league announcement described the brand as “a P&G brand” in its headline and listed Rodriguez as founder and chief executive, with Goff as president. That structure explains why a hair brand that began in 2014 can sign two NFL starters in the same season it holds a league partnership. The campaign runs on Mielle’s own channels, so any measure of results will come from the brand. The release says the films begin the week of Oct. 6. Mielle has not said how long the ambassador agreements run.
