Ryan Gonzalez
Co-founder, Church California
The Beginning
On the luckiest day of my life, June 7th, 2012, at a bar called Moe's, just a couple of blocks away from where I lived at the time in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, I met my life partner and business partner, Beatrice. Today, that same bar where we met now sits beside a barbershop, called Persons of Interest, who stock the pomades that Bea and I would go on to create together about 5 years later.
Having grown up with a mother who raised her to make her own products for daily grooming, from soap to toothpaste, Bea has only ever used natural products. She’s repulsed by synthetics of all kind. As we were getting to know each other, she was shocked to find the products in my bathroom; I recall her reading the ingredient lists slack-jawed. A look of horror on her face, she seemed surprised I could still be alive after years of using the products I was using. At the time, lay-rite was my pomade of choice, and the synthetic smells gave her such a headache that she offered to create a product for me, promising it would both work better and be better for me. No surprise, considering we’re here now, she delivered on that promise.
Years later, after our first first daughter was born, and we had settled back to my hometown of San Francisco, we decided to bring the products she was making for our family to market. It was Bea’s idea to focus on men first, and specifically styling products, because it was these products that we found to be the most egregious offenders.
The “World’s First Botanical Barbershop”
Historically speaking, barbershops were once a place for men to seek medical services in addition to haircuts, and the products they offered were once made with natural, earthly ingredients, as all things were at that time to some degree. In fact, the word “pomade” originates from the latin root “pomo” which translates to “mashed apples”, an ingredient that along with essential oils, would mask the smell of the animal fats and lards used to make pomade and other ointments in the 1500’s. Centuries later, fueled by profits and also lack of know-how and a steadying disconnection with nature, barbershop products are now filled with toxins, from known carcinogens like talc powder to super-synthetic shaving and styling products that reek of cheap ingredients and lab-made fragrance. The barbershop has lost its connection with nature.
Dreaming of a return to an age before synthetics and harnessing a love for nature, we created Church Barber to serve as a test kitchen and showcase for the natural products that we would create.
As it happened, our list of needs for the “the World’s First Botanical Barbershop” would naturally lend itself to the requirements.
For example, for Church Barber to be a true test-kitchen for product formulation, it needed to be a place that can serve all hair types, which requires that our barbers must be able to cut all types of hair; today, our barbers are “the World’s Best Barbers” (self-proclaimed but true), and we serve an incredibly diverse clientele.
Likewise, Church needed to be a place that inspired connection and community, which requires a space that itself is inspirational; we brought on a third partner, Daniel Castro, and he brought that vision to fruition. Daniel designed a space where every detail is considered - it’s thoughtful, crafted with natural materials, television-free, and built for enhanced musical sound and conversation.
Of course, a botanical barbershop also needs to be a place that is free of synthetics, and this required us to build a truly natural product line that could support all barber needs and services, leading to the creation of the full Church California product line .
In advance of opening day, Bea created natural plant-made products for shaving, cleansing, haircare and hair styling, and even dreamt up a replacement for that dreaded, nasty talc powder (our “botanical dusting powder”). Nearly a decade later, every single product we’ve launched has undergone years of testing at Church Barber prior to its commercial launch.
Today we’re continuing to test and refine products we plan to bring to market one day, including a full shave line which we hope to bring online in late 2025.
The Future
There are many shops around the world that share our beliefs, that natural products are superior to synthetics and worth the investment they sometimes require. We partner with many of those shops, and we feel blessed to stock their shelves with Church California pomades.
For all the shops out there who would like to transition to offering natural, botanical products and services, please get in touch with us.
And for anyone looking to replace talc powder with a better working and better for you alternative, our recipe is below.
Botanical Barbershop Dusting Powder recipe:
- Ingredients: Equal parts, 1. Kaolin Clay, 2. Arrow Root Powder, 3. Dried Flowers (we use Jasmine, Rose, Lavender, and Holy Basil).
- Instructions: add the above ingredients to a handheld coffee grinder (we recommend buying one to be used only for this purpose), to crush the flowers and mix the ingredients.
The result is a non-toxic talc powder replacement that works better, smells better, is better.
Enjoy!
