By Jenna Lebovits
What if your daily shower felt more like a spiritual ritual than routine? Amun Organics co-founder Sophia Tullio believes it actually can, and should. “As you’re using Amun in water, a powerful conductor, it rinses the blessing through your hair and body, conferring health and abundant nutrients,” she says. Amun, she explains, is thought to be the sacred root origin of the word “amen.”
“In ancient Egypt before Christianity and Judaism adopted ‘Amen,’ it’s thought by some that the ancient Egyptians used to say ‘Amun’ as their blessing,” says Tullio. A firm believer that words carry energetic frequencies, she chose the name, she says, to serve as “a blessing from the Earth, the ancients and the divine.”
The seeds for Amun were planted during the parallel health journeys of Tullio and her longtime best friend and co-founder, Sarah Chiles. “We both suffered through different chronic illnesses for many years and became hypersensitive to synthetic fragrance and chemicals,” Tullio recalls. “It awakened us to entirely change our lifestyles and the products we use. Both of us lost tremendous amounts of hair.”
As she sought support and natural healing, Tullio found herself coming back to her roots and to the guidance of her father, Michael Tullio, founder of Aspen’s Salon Tullio. “He was incredibly instrumental in helping develop Amun,” she says. “He helped educate me on how to create something that bridges holistic health and modern beauty, and that works at a high-grade, professional level.”
As a child, Tullio remembers the transformative energy of the salon: “Growing up in that space, it was really interesting to watch how people would walk in and out,” she says. “It immediately transformed their spirit and mood because suddenly, they felt really beautiful.”
She and Chiles set out to create a professional hair care line that was clean, organic and supportive of personal health. “The irony is that beauty comes at a cost,” Tullio notes. “A lot of the products on the market have hormone disrupters and toxins.” Parabens, for one—synthetic preservatives used in many beauty products to prevent mold and bacteria—are endocrine disrupters that can interfere with hormone balance, reproductive health and the immune system. “What you put on your hair should be as healthy as what you put in your body,” Tullio believes, which is why you’ll never find sulfates, parabens, synthetic fragrances or artificial preservatives in any of Amun’s products.
Tullio’s desire to reconnect people with the natural world sent her across continents on pilgrimages, where she spent 40 days in Egypt and four months in India, studying the ancients and their ways of living. She returned home with clear takeaways: “They were very in touch with the laws of nature and lived in harmony with our beautiful planet.”
Amun taps into nature’s wisdom with its five tallow-based skin and hair care products. Sourced exclusively from certified organic farms in Canada, its grass-fed beef tallow is rich in a multitude of vitamins and fatty acids. “Tallow is the closest in molecular structure to our hair and skin,” says Tullio. “When it comes to hair follicles, it has the ability to penetrate at the deepest level.” It’s also an abundant and frequently discarded ingredient in the farming industry, she notes.
Her favorites, the Regenerative Shampoo and Leave-In Conditioner, restored the vitality she feared she may have lost for good a few years ago: “It acts as a nutritional supplement for the hair, bringing life back to your strands, increases shine and promotes hair growth.”
Every day, Tullio performs personal rituals for balance: meditation, chanting mantras and blessings. “I often think of Amun as a blessing,” she says. “For the day and for each time you use it.” amunorganics.com