Choosing a hair style is one of the most personal, and visible, ways we express ourselves but the beauty industry still largely divides its products and services into stereotypical gendered categories, often alongside a"pink tax" markup.
"We launched this as a passion project with the hypothesis that there are many other short hair women, non-binary, trans folks who have had the same experience. We went out to find them and we were very pleasantly surprised by the response and how many other folks like us are out there," co-founder Sheena Lister told me.
Despite having short hair, they would be up-charged for a women's haircut at salons. And while traditional barbershops specialize in shorter hair, they cater to men."I had been buying and using products for my 15 years of having short hair that had been made for and marketed to men," Lister said.
Their target customer is anyone with short hair, from chin-length bobs to buzzcuts. Even baldies love it for the smell, Lister told me.It currently sells the pomade directly via its website, as well as through 88 barbershops and salons nationally — retailers which they affectionally call BarbTailers — and that'll get to around 100 locations by the end of the year through a partnership with Bishops.