Our Story
KAMI Lab is run out of a working hair salon in Auckland.
Why this store exists
Behind the chair, the same conversation happens every week.
A client's hair looks incredible when she leaves. Three days later, it doesn't. She's been buying hair care for years and none of it holds. She asks what we use in the salon — and the honest answer is that most of it isn't sold in New Zealand.
That's the gap KAMI Lab fills. We bring the Japanese professional products we actually use in our own salon services, and make them available to people here.
What makes it different
Everything here is salon-proven
We don't stock a product because it has a good margin or a nice bottle. Every product in this store is used on our own clients' hair, in our own salon, before it appears on this page. If it doesn't hold up behind the chair, it doesn't get listed.
Repair, not coating
Hair is over 80% keratin. Bleach and colour break that keratin down — and no amount of surface coating fixes structural damage. It just hides it until the next wash. The products we choose work inside the hair, where the damage actually lives.
Education before selling
We publish a hair science guide every week, free, in the Hair Science Journal. Not product ads — actual explanations of why your hair does what it does. We'd rather you understand your hair and buy nothing, than buy the wrong thing.
Japanese science, made for New Zealand hair
Japan's professional hair care industry is decades deep in one specific thing: repairing damage at a molecular level. Strong UV, dry air, humidity and frequent colouring make that expertise genuinely useful here.
Every order is packed and shipped from our salon in New Zealand — no overseas wait, no customs surprises.
Ask us anything
Not sure where to start? That's the most common question we get, and it's a fair one. Send us a message — you'll get a straight answer from someone who cuts hair for a living, not a script.