A new beard and haircare line for Black men puts hydration first

The needs of hair types can vary greatly, with some getting more attention from haircare companies than others. At his barbershop in South East London, Aaron Wallace found that the product offerings suitable for his Black male clients were limited. “When you’re a barber, you’re also part hair doctor. A lot of the questions that men have, they often go to their barber first,” he says. Conversations about issues such as patchiness and hair loss would eventually turn to which products to use, and Wallace admits that even he had trouble finding the right haircare formulas to meet his grooming needs.

Through these barbershop chats, Wallace found that most of these issues could be traced back to dryness. “I realized the reason why we’re especially prone to dryness is because of the coils in our hair," he says. "Often, your body’s natural oil cannot reach the end of the hair so it’s very prone to drying out, which causes breakage when you’re combing.” To remedy this, he recommends starting by reviewing the ingredients in your shampoo, which is often the culprit behind dryness. With his beard and haircare line, which recently launched in Canada, Wallace incorporated hydrating ingredients including black seed oil and mango butter while avoiding detergents such as sulfates, which can remove natural oils.