Written by Menswear Style in Grooming on the 10th September 2018

Regal Gentleman are changing the way we talk about men's grooming, with their mission to redefine the modern gentleman and help men to become a better version of themselves. They believe that every man should be able to look and feel his best, and when he does he can make a positive impact on the world. With their first product, the Regal Gentleman Matte Clay, having just launched, and with a huge focus on building a close-knit community of gentlemen online, which they call the Regal Family, they are hoping to make this first product a part of spreading their vision to men around the world.

"This is about more than just men's grooming. As men, we have more pressure on us than ever before to look good and it can often impact us negatively. We want to throw out the stereotypes typically associated with men's grooming, and make it ok to talk about grooming, and mental health, amongst our fellow men." - Liam Jennings, Co-founder of Regal Gentleman.

Founded by best friends of 14 years, Liam Jennings and Josh Blackburn, Regal Gentleman was born after a bad haircut experience, where one side of co-founder Josh's hair was left completely uncut (yes, really!). At this point, the founders started to visit high end barbershops in their home-city of London and began research into where they could purchase the products that they were finding in those barbershops. The two young founders quickly realised that men's grooming was often overcomplicated, and men weren't knowledgeable about grooming from a lack of education, and, no one was doing customer service right online. "We wanted to bring simple and relatable education to men's grooming, make products that the modern-day gentleman had a hand in creating, and, bring the personal customer experience that you'd expect from the local cornershop to the online world." - Josh Blackburn, Co-founder of Regal Gentleman.

The Regal Gentleman brand has been on a unique journey since being founded over 4 and a half years ago. From their beginnings selling a curated selection of other branded products like Beardbrand, Layrite and Taylor of Old Bond Street, and, being featured as one of GQ's best online grooming services to now, where they have left that all behind and launched their first own brand product, the Regal Gentleman Matte Clay. Regal Gentleman's products are made with the best possible performance for the modern-day gentleman in mind, and are made without the bad stuff; paraben and sulphate free, cruelty free, and, just like the founders themselves, are made in the UK. Although they only have one product available at the moment, the gents at Regal Gentleman have high ambitions and thrive as underdogs, trying to influence an industry often dominated by larger corporations; with a future complete hair care range in development, and even more to come in the future, as they look to achieve their vision of helping as many men as possible to become a better version of themselves.

What challenges are involved in creating such a product?  

"This is the first product we have created, so it was all a huge learning curve for us. We've been in this industry for four and a half years, so we've learnt a lot in that time about how to do this, but that still doesn't fully prepare you for doing it alone. It was over a year and a half ago that we came up with the idea, and started the process of creating the Matte Clay. Luckily, we also had a great team working on this product with us. Our chemist with over 30+ years of experience in creating men's grooming products, the Regal Family testing team of gents passionate about grooming products, and, some of the best barbers in the UK, were all involved heavily in the creation of the Matte Clay." 

How did you come up with the packaging design?  

"Men's grooming products are often designed black and white or vice versa. We wanted to bring a little bit of colour to men's grooming, but still keep the elegant touch that our brand should convey. We've spent the last year, since we stopped selling other branded products, really digging into our brand and what we wanted from it. The Matte Clay is associated to the colour, and each product in our future range will have a different colour associated to it."

Where do you hope to sell your product? 

"The main outlet for selling our product will be regalgentleman.com. We don't want to have to rely on just retailers, when we are able to reach our target audience better than ever before. This also allows us to stay in full control of the entire experience you have with Regal Gentleman from start to finish. That's not to say that we won't be considering retailers, but we'll try to remain a lot more exclusive on that side. We will also be looking to put our product into some of the best barbershops in the UK, so that you know when you see our product, the barbershop is recommended by Regal Gentleman." 

Were you inspired by any other brands during the creation? 

"To be honest we see ourselves as unique, especially in this industry. We always look to how we can challenge the status quo and what our community would want, as opposed to focusing on what other brands are doing. There are a lot of brands that are killing it on their own in other similar sectors though, for example Gymshark and Frank Body. These guys show us that we want to achieve is possible!"

We sit down and speak to Liam Jennings who is the co-founder of Regal Gentleman who make men's hair products.