The Hard Men Who Helped Hairbond Break America
From Sunderland and Preston to Santa Monica, Hollywood and The Tonight Show
Hairbond did not enter America through a giant advertising agency.
There was no multinational launch plan.
No conference room full of executives discussing “market penetration” while eating tiny sandwiches.
There was me.
A few boxes of British hair products.
And some very supportive hard men.
That proved surprisingly effective.
Tony Jeffries: A Sunderland Lad Done Good
Tony Jeffries was one of the first people who properly helped Hairbond in America.
Tony was a Sunderland lad who represented Great Britain at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and returned with a bronze medal. He later moved to Santa Monica, California, after injuries ended his professional boxing career.
That is what I call a Sunderland lad done good.
He had come from an ordinary background, fought his way onto the Olympic podium and then started again in America.
I understood that mentality.
Hairbond had also come from somewhere ordinary.
It began inside a British hair salon.
We were not supposed to be taking on America.
So naturally, we decided to have a go.
Tony and I filmed a promotional video in Santa Monica with Hollywood filmmaker Alex Gans.
A boxer from Sunderland.
A hairdresser and brand founder from Lancashire.
A Hollywood filmmaker.
All standing under the California sun promoting Hairbond.
It was a long way from where the brand had started.
The weather was considerably better.
Tony Opened the Door to Mickey Rourke
Tony did more than appear in a video.
He connected me with Mickey Rourke.
Even now, that is a fairly ridiculous sentence to be able to write.
Mickey Rourke was not just another Hollywood actor.
He was an international film star who had also stepped away from acting to become a professional boxer.
He understood fighting.
He understood reinvention.
He understood what it meant to take a few knocks and come back.
Mickey tried Hairbond and tweeted that he loved it.
For a small independent British brand, that was a major moment.
It was not a paid endorsement manufactured by an agency.
Nobody sent him a script telling him to describe the product as “a game changer.”
He received Hairbond.
He liked Hairbond.
He said so.
Marketing occasionally works better when humans are allowed to behave like humans.
Wade Barrett: Preston to WWE
Then there was Wade Barrett.
Wade was born in Penwortham and grew up around Preston before building a major career in WWE. He became the leader of The Nexus and won the Intercontinental Championship five times.
He was a local lad who had made it on one of the biggest entertainment stages in America.
He was also 6 feet 7 inches tall.
That is less a man and more a planning objection.
Wade supported Hairbond and helped pass the products through his own network.
That mattered.
Professional wrestlers understand presentation better than almost anyone.
The entrance matters.
The music matters.
The clothes matter.
The character matters.
The hair matters.
Nobody becomes a convincing wrestling villain while looking like they have just been woken up for an early dentist appointment.
Wade had presence.
Hairbond suited him.
Brian Pillman Jr.
We also received support from Brian Pillman Jr., the son of legendary wrestler “Flyin’ Brian” Pillman.
Brian Jr. followed his father into professional wrestling and built a career across the American independent scene, Major League Wrestling and AEW before joining WWE.
Like Tony and Wade, he did not simply receive some products and disappear.
He supported us.
He helped pass Hairbond around.
These people understood that a recommendation could open a door for a small brand.
They did not have to help.
They chose to.
That is the part I remember.
Into the Make-Up Departments
The products began moving beyond the athletes and wrestlers themselves.
They were passed into make-up departments.
Onto sets.
Into the hands of stylists who worked with actors and productions.
That is how Hollywood often works.
You do not necessarily walk through the front entrance holding a presentation folder.
Someone trusted passes the product to someone else.
A stylist tries it.
It enters their kit.
Then the kit enters a film set.
Hairbond reached Mark Wahlberg through those relationships.
I am not claiming Mark became our unpaid American sales representative.
He did not start ringing barbers in Ohio.
The point is that our products had travelled from a British salon into the orbit of one of Hollywood’s biggest stars.
That was progress.
Hairbond and John Wick
Hairbond products also reached the teams working around major film productions, including John Wick.
That felt appropriate.
Hairbond had always been built around control, confidence and presentation.
John Wick had those qualities too.
Although his methods of resolving customer complaints were slightly more aggressive than ours.
The important part was not simply the film title.
It was that Hairbond had become useful enough for professionals working behind the scenes to keep passing it forward.
The brand was gaining credibility inside rooms the public never sees.
Make-up rooms.
Styling departments.
Production trailers.
Places where appearance is not vanity.
It is part of the work.
Distorter in Birdman
Then Hairbond Distorter appeared in Birdman.
That was a proper moment.
Birdman starred Michael Keaton and went on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Contemporary coverage of the film’s product placements specifically identified Hairbond products among the brands visible on screen.
Distorter was one of the products that defined Hairbond.
Strong hold.
Matte finish.
A distinctive fragrance.
A jar you noticed.
Seeing it appear in a major Hollywood film was surreal.
Hairbond had been created because I thought men deserved better hair products and salons deserved better products to sell.
I did not begin with a master plan to place Distorter near Michael Keaton.
That would have sounded unhinged.
Yet there it was.
A product conceived in Britain appearing in an Oscar-winning American film.
Not bad for a jar of clay.
Taking Hairbond to Jimmy Fallon
The American journey became stranger again when I was invited to The Tonight Show in New York.
When Jimmy Fallon took over as host in February 2014, the programme returned from California to New York after more than four decades on the West Coast.
I attended the show and have a photograph giving Jimmy Fallon a jar of Hairbond Shaper Toffee.
That photograph means a lot to me.
Shaper represented everything that made Hairbond different.
It worked properly.
It came in beautiful packaging.
And it smelled like toffee.
Most men’s hair products at the time smelled as though they had been formulated behind a tyre-fitting garage.
Hairbond was different by design.
There I was in New York, handing one of our products to the host of America’s most famous late-night television programme.
Not bad for a former hairdresser from Lancaster.
This Was Not Influencer Marketing
Tony Jeffries.
Mickey Rourke.
Wade Barrett.
Brian Pillman Jr.
Mark Wahlberg.
John Wick.
Birdman.
Jimmy Fallon.
It reads like a carefully planned celebrity campaign.
It was not.
It was people helping people.
Tony connected me with Mickey.
Wrestlers passed products through their networks.
Products reached stylists.
Stylists carried them into make-up departments.
Make-up departments carried them onto sets.
One introduction created another.
One jar travelled into another room.
That was how Hairbond moved through America.
Not through enormous advertising budgets.
Through relationships.
Trust.
And products people were happy to put their names behind.
Hard Men With Generous Hearts
People often imagine hard men as cold or selfish.
My experience was different.
Tony Jeffries helped.
Wade Barrett helped.
Brian Pillman Jr. helped.
They understood what it meant to build something from nothing.
They knew what it felt like to travel far from home and prove yourself in America.
A Sunderland boxer.
A Preston wrestler.
The son of an American wrestling legend.
Different backgrounds.
Different careers.
The same willingness to open a door for someone else.
That generosity helped Hairbond reach places money alone could not have reached.
Hairbond Was Never Supposed to Know Its Place
Hairbond was a small British brand competing in the biggest market in the world.
We had no right to reach Hollywood actors.
No right to appear in Oscar-winning films.
No right to enter major television studios.
No right to stand alongside Olympic medallists and WWE stars.
So we ignored all that.
Tony did not wait for permission to become an Olympian.
Wade did not wait for permission to become a WWE superstar.
Hairbond did not wait for permission to become an international brand.
That is why this chapter matters.
It proves that small brands do not always need enormous budgets.
Sometimes they need good products.
A bit of nerve.
And good people who are prepared to pass the jar along.
From Sunderland and Preston to Santa Monica.
From a British salon to Hollywood make-up departments.
From Distorter in Birdman to Shaper Toffee in Jimmy Fallon’s hands.
Hairbond was made in Britain.
But it was never made to stay there.