Church represents the feeling of connection to the universe one experiences upon entering their "Church", whether that Church be a physical place like a lush forest path or a surfer amongst a perfect set of waves, or a non-psychical place like the natural high or euphoria you feel upon entering a "flow state".
For us, California is a Church we're lucky enough to experience every day and we do our best to get out into nature as frequently as possible. Church California’s mission is to utilize the plant life around us to build extremely high quality grooming products, trusting in mother nature’s abilities to heal our bodies.
Everything we create at Church California reflects our faith in awakening the senses to the power of the natural world, and the transformative effects of bringing wild elements into our everyday lives and rituals. We call them "natural highs".
Our products are 100% botanical, made in small batches from plants found in the wild and harvested at the height of their potency. They are completely free of toxins, chemical additives and artificial fragrances, because our senses know the difference.
Church California was founded in 2014 by Ryan and Beatrice Gonzalez, and further evolved in collaboration with a collective of artists, designers, craftsmen, herbalists and creators dedicated to reuniting the human body + spirit with the natural world.
PERFORMANCE GUARANTEE
Our foremost mission is to create natural styling products that are high performance and work better than more conventional, lab-made products. We want to make it a no-brainer for you to toss out chemical based hair and grooming products and embrace our natural alternatives, without sacrificing the results you want. If you’re not satisfied with your products, we will happily refund you, less the cost of shipping.
Note: Some customers find that using multiple Church products in tandem with each other provides the perfect result for their unique hair and styling needs. Trying with and without water, or comparing performance with completely dry hair versus towel dry hair, to find your preference, is also recommended.
FAQs:
WHAT DOES HAIR WAX DO?
Hair wax is a strong hold styling product that dually soothes and controls unruly hair, while providing structured styling and hold. Our hybrid formula of plant waxes and unrefined bentonite clay, naturally binds hair follicles together to add volume while bolstering hair for traditional styling and shape while locking in all-day hold. Our chemical-free, water-based formula also nourishes and repairs hair, sealing in moisture and protecting hair and scalp against environmental stress and UV damage. Fatty plant oils and herbal infusions add luster and shine to hair, fortifying its follicular structure and renewing it from the roots. People with thick, straight, and hard-to-tame hair will specifically notice the benefits of adding a wax to their styling process. We recommend using a dime-sized amount of wax and working it into the hair with your fingertips for natural styling or wet combing it into hair for a more polished look.
WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HAIR CLAY, CREAM, AND WAX?
Hair wax is our strongest hold, most structured hair styling pomade. Our cream pomade is a leave-in hydrating cream for curly, damaged, and dry hair; providing minimal hold, light shine, and a soft, natural styling. Our Clay pomade offers medium hold and shine, thickens and shapes hair, and is perfect for a casual everyday styling. Wax pomade is a harder styling option with more shine and tight hold for a more traditional, polished styling. All of our pomades are water-based and formulated using similar parts plant oils, hydrosols, herbal infusions, and plant extracts, so you can wear them individually or mix them together to achieve your desired result. We encourage intuition and for our customers to try and find the right proportions and ratios for their unique hair, adjusting for seasonal and personal changes as needed.
IS HAIR WAX GOOD FOR YOU?
Our pomades are uniquely formulated with active, potent botanicals that are specifically chosen for their targeted healing properties. In addition to styling, each pomade is built around a central mission of hair and scalp health and wellness. While many pomades on the market are packed with synthetics, chemicals, preservatives, fragrances, and nasty lab-made ingredients that have been linked to a variety of personal health issues from hormone disruption to cancer, all of our products are 100% natural, plant-made, raw and alive. We protect our living formulas in imported violet glass which naturally preserves and enhances the products; allowing us to bypass chemical preservatives and allow the raw plant ingredients to work to their full potential. We select ingredients based on their innate healing properties; from fatty plant oils to nourish, rehydrate, and protect hair, to hyper-potent plant extracts that treat and repair specific hair and scalp conditions, to waxes and butters that lock in moisture and create a barrier against UV damage and environmental exposure, to algae and other super-nutrients that fortify hair from the roots. Every component works alone and together to provide the styling you need without jeopardizing your health and body chemistry.
WHAT DOES WATER BASED MEAN?
Most conventional products are made with cheap chemical ingredients and byproducts like petroleum, which are essentially “dead” ingredients; long lasting and easily mass produced for maximum profit. We formulate our products to be as bioavailable as possible, meaning that they support and enhance your biology rather than disrupting and damaging it. Like your body, our formulas are built using a base of vitalized water; water that has been re-oxygenated and molecularized to support deep healing in the body. The vitalization process rebalances the molecular stage of water by creating a vortex and spinning the water to incorporate oxygen back into the water structure, similar to what happens naturally in nature. Vitalized water contains up to 30% more oxygen than normal water, and we find that it makes for more vibrant and balanced products that neutralize pH, heal skin and scalp conditions, and result in formulas that are soft, gentle, and deeply healing. Read more about our water philosophy here: link to water philosophy.
WHY ARE THERE SO MANY INGREDIENTS IF ITS A NATURAL PRODUCT?
A key goal of our formulation process is to create natural products that are 100% plant-made while providing the results of conventional ‘lab made’ grooming products. Many natural products offer simple formulas of a few ingredients but we believe that building a high-performance product means using a symbiosis of potent plant ingredients; from extracts to oils, hydrosols, to butters, to specifically target all the areas we are solving for. We believe in understanding what people need and working backwards to find natural plant ingredients that heal and support our bodies; trusting that everything we need can be found in nature. We choose each plant ingredient based on its unique healing profile and ability to synthesize with the other ingredients, following a formulation philosophy that gently layers phases of ingredients to maximize the healing potential of each formula. Once we’re close, every product is extensively tested in our barbershop with our highly-trained barbers and discerning clients, and reworked to perfection. Our final product is the culmination of countless revisions and test phases; delivering products that are results-driven while highlighting the natural, fresh plant ingredients inside.
HOW DOES THE POMADE STAY FRESH WITHOUT PRESERVATIVES?
Our products are all 100% plant-made, raw, living formulas -- free from lab-made preservatives, synthetics, and chemicals. To naturally preserve them, we use biophotonic glass jars and bottles; a thick violet glass imported from Europe, that limits damaging light and protects our fragile living ingredients from harm. Biophotonic glass limits spectral light from entering while allowing enriching ultraviolet and infrared light rays to flow freely through the glass. These types of healing light actually energize the formulas inside, attuning them to the frequency of a calm parasympathetic nervous system and naturally extending their shelf life to keep our products fresh and alive for years. Our investment in high quality glass means that your product will always be fresh, work great, and even get better with age without the use of any toxic, illness-causing preserving chemicals.
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