^Aniston visiting MIT this week, wearing her ring!

Jennifer Aniston has been all over the news this week! Did you know that Brad Pitt’s Chanel No. 5 campaign is coming out this week too, and that he’s begun to do press for Killing Them Softly? That’s so coincidental. It’s probably nothing! Anyway, the Wall Street Journal has a somewhat interesting story about Jennifer finally, at long last, endorsing a hair product. She’s avoided haircare endorsements for years and years, and now she’s finally getting into the lucrative game. But much like her Smartwater endorsement, Aniston isn’t just signing on to be the “face” of a campaign – she’s actually scored an interesting deal in which she’s investing in the fledging company and she will be a profit-participant.

A small hair-care company called Living Proof, based on science from MIT has signed Jennifer Aniston as an investor and spokesperson in an attempt to make waves in the $10 billion hair-care industry. Ms. Aniston and her layered hairstyle—”the Rachel”—have been a style icon and powerful influence in the beauty industry for almost 20 years. She is set to take a starring role in marketing for the brand, including an ad campaign expected to start shooting in November. Executives expect the 43-year-old actress to have input into new products, package design and other business areas in exchange for her equity stake, which they declined to quantify but called “meaningful.”

Packaging a Hollywood star with a blue-chip scientific team, including Robert Langer, one of medicine’s most prolific inventors, highlights how high the success bar is set for new beauty products venturing out in front of jaded consumers. In a market saturated with “scientific” claims, Living Proof at first thought its MIT credentials would be enough to create brand awareness but eventually saw they needed more firepower.

Ms. Aniston, endlessly photographed by paparazzi, has done few major product endorsements besides her commercial relationship with Coca-Cola Co.’s Smartwater.

“I have been approached many, many times,” she said in an interview at Living Proof’s Cambridge, Mass., headquarters, where she was visiting Monday to meet employees and shoot footage capturing her reaction to scientists demonstrating products. Ms. Aniston said she was glad to work with a high-end, little-known brand. “You want to be part of something that’s exciting and authentic,” she said. “You can’t get more interesting than these scientists.”

Practically every consumer brand has some kind of celebrity endorser, though, and while Ms. Aniston will no doubt get attention, there are no guarantees that attention will turn into sales gains and long-term loyalty.

The brand’s science star is Dr. Langer, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a chemical engineer. Ms. Aniston appeared to appreciate the novelty of their collaboration for the sake of better hair. “Bob Langer, are we curing cancer? Or diabetes? And he’s like, Yeah, I’m doing that as well as hair,” she said in an interview hours after meeting him.

“I like a scientific challenge,” Dr. Langer said in a separate interview. “I like to see if we can use science to solve problems.”

Ms. Aniston says she was “fascinated by the scientific approach” and asked for some product to test with her longtime hairdresser, Chris McMillan, salon owner and creator of the Rachel. Shooting in North Carolina at the time, Ms. Aniston says the “100% humidity” made for ideal test conditions for Living Proof’s frizz-fighting powers. She was surprised to find the No Frizz cream left her hair with “great curls.”

On Monday, Ms. Aniston’s presence created a frenzy in the Living Proof offices near the MIT campus. Top company scientists were on hand to show the movie star their products’ effectiveness against competitors. Ms. Aniston watched a demonstration in which two executives used an upholstery steamer on a model’s head to simulate humidity. Half of the model’s hair had been treated with No Frizz, the other half with a rival silicone-based product.

As exposure to the humidity went on, one side of the hair started to poof up. Ms. Aniston leaned in to touch. “It’s much coarser,” she said of the side treated with the competitor product. She touched the other side. “This is much smoother,” she said.

[From Wall Street Journal]

There’s actually a lengthy explanation of why and how this company is using science to revolutionize haircare products, and it’s pretty interesting, so I would suggest reading the whole article. I kind of like that Aniston isn’t just taking a beauty contract and swishing her hair around – she’s making an investment, she’s putting her name and her celebrity on the line, and it’s a bold, interesting business move. And now we know why she was in Boston. I would have loved a line in there about her engagement ring! Like, she wearing her giant rock at MIT and the scientists said it looked like quartz or something.

Photos courtesy of WSJ, Jason Thomas/Filmmagic and WENN.