Some people buy your product.
Some sell it.
A few become part of the story.
CJ Martin is one of those people.
We have always called him The Young Gun.
It suited him.
Young. Hungry. Sharp. Good with his hands. Always learning. Always looking for the next cut, the next shoot, the next show.
CJ built his reputation the proper way.
Behind a chair.
No shortcuts.
No manufactured fame.
No rented Lamborghini outside a barber shop while somebody pretends a skin fade changed civilisation.
Just work.
That mattered to me.
Because Hairbond was built the same way.
Before everybody became an ambassador
The word ambassador has been battered to death.
Today somebody can post three Reels, put a product in shot and suddenly they are Global Creative Director of Hair.
That was never our game.
The Hairbond Artistic Team was about people who could actually cut.
People who understood shape.
Weight.
Texture.
Movement.
Finishing.
People who knew the haircut should do the heavy lifting and the product should finish the job.
CJ understood that.
He was not there to smile with a tub of Hairbond.
He worked.
He demonstrated.
He travelled.
He represented us.
And he became a mate.
There is a big difference.
The road
We did shoots with CJ all over the country.
Different models.
Different locations.
Different products.
Different disasters.
Hair shoots are rarely as glamorous as the final photograph.
Early starts.
Late finishes.
Cars full of kit.
Models running late.
Lights misbehaving.
Hair looking perfect one minute and declaring independence the next.
And somebody asking where the Distorter is.
Usually while holding it.
CJ was there for plenty of it.
Then we would meet again at shows.
You spend enough time on the road with somebody and the relationship changes.
You stop talking about orders.
You start talking about life.
That is what happened with CJ.
He stopped being a customer a long time ago.
He became one of ours.
The Young Gun could cut
That was the important bit.
CJ could cut hair.
Simple.
There are plenty of people in this industry who are brilliant at talking about barbering.
CJ did it.
He understood that a fade was not finished because the sides were short.
He understood balance.
Texture.
Shape.
And he understood product.
That sounds obvious.
It isn’t.
We have all seen hair with enough product in it to seal a driveway.
Good product should not rescue a bad haircut.
It should expose a good one.
That was always how I saw Hairbond.
Cut it properly.
Style it properly.
Know when to stop.
CJ got it.
Why the Artistic Team mattered
Hairbond was never meant to become another faceless pot sitting on a supermarket shelf.
It came from the professional industry.
That mattered.
The Artistic Team gave the brand hands.
Faces.
Voices.
Real barbers using real products on real hair.
Not marketing departments explaining barbering to barbers.
Barbers explaining barbering.
That is a very different thing.
CJ was part of Hairbond when we were still proving ourselves.
Nobody handed us distribution.
Nobody gave us shelf space.
Nobody gave us permission.
We had to earn it.
Shop by shop.
Barber by barber.
Recommendation by recommendation.
The people who backed us then matter.
CJ backed us.
We backed him.
That relationship lasted.
Bicester
CJ built his own reputation in Bicester.
That means more to me than follower numbers.
A barber cannot hide behind a campaign forever.
Monday morning arrives.
The chair is waiting.
The customer sits down.
And he knows whether you are any good.
Then he decides whether he comes back.
That is the scoreboard.
A barber builds a career one haircut at a time.
One conversation.
One recommendation.
One bloke telling another bloke where he gets his hair cut.
CJ did that while travelling with Hairbond, working on shoots, appearing at shows and representing the Artistic Team.
He earned the nickname.
The problem with calling someone The Young Gun
Eventually they get older.
Time is inconvenient like that.
But the name stayed.
And I am glad it did.
Because Young Gun was never really about age.
It became CJ.
Energy.
Ambition.
A bit of swagger.
And the willingness to turn up.
Businesses remember the people who turn up.
More than anything else, they remember the people who were there before it looked fashionable.
CJ was.
Before anyone was watching
Looking back, I do not think the strongest Hairbond relationships were ever really about marketing.
They were about trust.
We did not need CJ to tell the world Hairbond was the greatest product ever made.
We needed him to use it.
To understand it.
To put it into somebody’s hair when his own reputation was on the line.
That is stronger than an advert.
A good barber choosing your product in front of his customer means something.
That is how Hairbond grew.
Barber to barber.
Chair to chair.
Shop to shop.
People talking.
People recommending.
People like CJ.
Hairbond was not built by influencers.
It was built by people who turned up before anyone was watching.
Distorter
One of the old Hairbond videos captures CJ perfectly.
Fade with CJ Martin.
The Young Gun works on Mark and finishes the haircut with Hairbond Distorter Professional Hair Clay.
Distorter gives flexible hold with a natural matte finish.
Texture without concrete.
Control without killing movement.
The product does not try to become the haircut.
It lets the haircut breathe.
Again, that was the point.
Watching that video now feels different.
At the time it was another shoot.
Another piece of education.
Another day on the road.
Now it is history.
Not corporate heritage manufactured after the event.
Real history.
We were there.
CJ was there.
The cameras were rolling.
And Hairbond was still being built.
The people behind the pots
Brands love talking about heritage once they have some.
Then somebody polishes it.
Cleans it up.
Removes the messy bits.
And eventually the story starts sounding like it was all planned.
It wasn’t.
Hairbond was built by people.
Barbers.
Hairdressers.
Customers.
Friends.
People carrying boxes.
People driving across the country.
People standing at shows.
People doing shoots.
People recommending a product because they actually liked it.
CJ Martin was one of them.
Not just an ambassador.
Not just a customer.
A long-standing friend.
Part of the Hairbond Artistic Team.
Part of the road.
Part of our history.
We still call him The Young Gun.
Although, after all these years, the word young is doing some fairly heavy lifting.
Sorry, CJ.
You have been around too long.
And that is exactly why this story matters.
Fade with CJ Martin AKA The Young Gun
CJ styles Mark using Hairbond Distorter Professional Hair Clay.
Watch Fade with CJ Martin on YouTube
Hairbond. Built by people who know hair.
@Cjam125