Young entrepreneurial couple, Thom and Laura Langlands, plan to grab life by the beard with the launch of Heavy Metal Gentleman, a Darlington based business that produce homemade, luxury beard care products.
2014 may well have been the year of the beard, and the trend certainly isn’t dying out anytime soon. Other than giving men ten more minutes in bed on a morning, what has caused it’s sudden upsurge that has men competing for the strongest beard game?
The trend certainly hasn’t gone unnoticed, from A-List celebrities such as Ryan Gosling and Tom Hardy sporting on fleek beards, to the gentleman serving you drinks on a typical Saturday night, the sensation has captured the entire male population.
The Darlington couple have capitalised on the growing popularity of beards, originally only selling in the UK, Europe and USA, but a shout out on their social media platforms revealed interest from people in South Africa and Brazil.
The creative couple were inspired by their joint passion for natural products and the bearded community, to create a brand with the mantra that luxury is for everybody.
The base of the products are made up using Argan oil, Jojoba oil, Almond oil, Castor oil, Coconut oil and Avocado oil; all of which are unrefined so all the goodness isn’t lost during the extraction process.
Part owner of the business, Laura Langlands, said: “It is important to us to use natural ingredients in our products. In the fast paced lifestyle most of us can be living, we wanted to provide a beard care product that is quick and easy to use but contains nothing but goodness.”
The beard care industry has been fighting it’s way into the mainstream with traditional barber shops popping up there is a market out there for specialised products.
With the rise of men ditching the fresh-faced look and Datamonitor’s results of 52% of global male consumers considering their looks and appearance to be important, we think 2016 will be the year of men’s grooming.
Laura added: “Being able to identify what it is that will make the next beard care brand better than the last is what gives room for new companies and new brands like us to come in.
“With cosmetics the possibilities are endless, it’s just a matter of keeping on top of what the public want that makes it possible for many different companies selling the same thing thrive.”
Holding over 20 years retail sales and marketing experience between them, Laura and Thom have funded this venture so far purely from savings and monthly wages, using other local businesses where they can to build their image and create the product.
Thom said: “We hope to achieve our backing goal so we can expand our product range into moustache waxes and grooming accessories in order to cater for a larger audience.”
