Latest news with #bald
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
'Hair loss is hard but being bald is fantastic - no one told us that before we launched'
Three friends recently held a free beer giveaway for bald people at a brewery next to their warehouse in Birmingham. The trio, who are also bald and set up skincare business Bld Bro, even saw one punter turn up having shaved his head in a bid to sample their limited edition brew. 'That was a win,' says co-founder Tariq Kazemi. Strong brand loyalty and multi-million pound gains had already been made after first conceiving the idea in 2020. Bld Bro soft launched two years later with 1,000 tubes of a fast-absorbing gel that tackles three main skincare concerns of bald people — shine, UV protection and moisturisation. In June, Bld Bro mustered a record month with over 8,000 orders and revenues of £315,000. Overall, the start-up has accrued £2.6m ($3.5m) in revenue in the last 12 months and believe they can hit £25m within the next three years as a global product. Read More: 'I pitched my car finance idea to my mother-in-law and she got it straight away' 'As three bald guys, we were just sick and tired of the narrative in society that bald is bad,' says Kazemi. 'That if you lose your hair, there's something's going wrong with you and you need to treat and prevent it. 'We came to understand that the process of hair loss is difficult, but being bald is fantastic and no one had told us that.' Now in their early forties, Ben Saunders, described as a "creative genius", and Richard Boazman, a property businessman and band manager in his youth, had grown up in South Birmingham together. Meanwhile, Kazemi had known Boazman for 20 years after meeting at Aberystwyth University. In 2020, the trio's journey formed when Kazemi was told by Boazman that Saunders wanted to set up a brand that championed baldness. The statistics are telling, with 70% of bald people more likely to obtain skin cancers and around 6.5 million men affected by hair loss in the UK alone. Read More: 'Our £30m success is due to mums making sure our children's food looked great' E-commerce specialist Kazemi had been fed up of watching the TV advertisement fad of former cricketers promoting hair transplants and had previously taken hair loss medication Propecia for 10 years. 'I bought into the hype and thought I shouldn't lose my hair,' he adds. 'That's why there's a $7.8bn industry built around the fears and anxieties of young men.' For three years, the trio worked for free alongside their day jobs and each plunged £25,000 of savings into the business. Hiring a team of chemists with a clear brief of an absorbing gel with sun protector, the two-year process took in around 100 iterations. Initially they grew an Instagram community during COVID to talk about the mental health impacts and stigma of balding. But once the trio quickly sold the first 1,000 batch of their day gel, they reinvested and raised a small pre-seed round of £350,000 to be able to launch properly last year. Kazemi recalls: 'When we started, we said, 'Worst case scenario, we've just kitted ourselves out with a really nice product for life. If it doesn't sell, at least we love it.'' Read More: 'We sold a hand cream every 36 seconds after appearing on This Morning Tasmanian-born Kazemi says there have been plenty of shared characteristics with his fellow founders. 'There are so many ways to create something and none is correct, it's just the way you get there,' he says of a business that grew by 850% through 2024. 'I think two things are overconfidence and grit, so it's like you've got to believe it. 'You obviously go through your moments of doubt as a founder, not just in products but in all facets of life. But all of us really believed in the project so much and we believed in the message." Behind the brand: Tariq Kazemi on… Messaging We did an email campaign where co-founder Ben took a picture of his dad's head. It looked like a war zone, covered in lesions and marks, as he is from a generation that wasn't educated on UV protection and left his head out there for the elements. I think we're educating on that sense of the need for skincare and for UV protection. We're making this skincare predominantly for ourselves. As three bald men, we wouldn't want to produce anything that we wouldn't use ourselves. And secondly, we believe in the message so much because we wish that, when we were in our twenties, there was a Bld Bro that was championing bald pride. Read more: 'I returned to my old office to sell ties after being made redundant' 'In our workplace, we look for passionate, slightly unhinged mountain climbers' Britain's 'king of billboards' who sold his business for £1bnError in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
'Hair loss is hard but being bald is fantastic - no one told us that before we launched'
Three friends recently held a free beer giveaway for bald people at a brewery next to their warehouse in Birmingham. The trio, who are also bald and set up skincare business Bld Bro, even saw one punter turn up having shaved his head in a bid to sample their limited edition brew. 'That was a win,' says co-founder Tariq Kazemi. Strong brand loyalty and multi-million pound gains had already been made after first conceiving the idea in 2020. Bld Bro soft launched two years later with 1,000 tubes of a fast-absorbing gel that tackles three main skincare concerns of bald people — shine, UV protection and moisturisation. In June, Bld Bro mustered a record month with over 8,000 orders and revenues of £315,000. Overall, the start-up has accrued £2.6m ($3.5m) in revenue in the last 12 months and believe they can hit £25m within the next three years as a global product. Read More: 'I pitched my car finance idea to my mother-in-law and she got it straight away' 'As three bald guys, we were just sick and tired of the narrative in society that bald is bad,' says Kazemi. 'That if you lose your hair, there's something's going wrong with you and you need to treat and prevent it. 'We came to understand that the process of hair loss is difficult, but being bald is fantastic and no one had told us that.' Now in their early forties, Ben Saunders, described as a "creative genius", and Richard Boazman, a property businessman and band manager in his youth, had grown up in South Birmingham together. Meanwhile, Kazemi had known Boazman for 20 years after meeting at Aberystwyth University. In 2020, the trio's journey formed when Kazemi was told by Boazman that Saunders wanted to set up a brand that championed baldness. The statistics are telling, with 70% of bald people more likely to obtain skin cancers and around 6.5 million men affected by hair loss in the UK alone. Read More: 'Our £30m success is due to mums making sure our children's food looked great' E-commerce specialist Kazemi had been fed up of watching the TV advertisement fad of former cricketers promoting hair transplants and had previously taken hair loss medication Propecia for 10 years. 'I bought into the hype and thought I shouldn't lose my hair,' he adds. 'That's why there's a $7.8bn industry built around the fears and anxieties of young men.' For three years, the trio worked for free alongside their day jobs and each plunged £25,000 of savings into the business. Hiring a team of chemists with a clear brief of an absorbing gel with sun protector, the two-year process took in around 100 iterations. Initially they grew an Instagram community during COVID to talk about the mental health impacts and stigma of balding. But once the trio quickly sold the first 1,000 batch of their day gel, they reinvested and raised a small pre-seed round of £350,000 to be able to launch properly last year. Kazemi recalls: 'When we started, we said, 'Worst case scenario, we've just kitted ourselves out with a really nice product for life. If it doesn't sell, at least we love it.'' Read More: 'We sold a hand cream every 36 seconds after appearing on This Morning Tasmanian-born Kazemi says there have been plenty of shared characteristics with his fellow founders. 'There are so many ways to create something and none is correct, it's just the way you get there,' he says of a business that grew by 850% through 2024. 'I think two things are overconfidence and grit, so it's like you've got to believe it. 'You obviously go through your moments of doubt as a founder, not just in products but in all facets of life. But all of us really believed in the project so much and we believed in the message." Behind the brand: Tariq Kazemi on… Messaging We did an email campaign where co-founder Ben took a picture of his dad's head. It looked like a war zone, covered in lesions and marks, as he is from a generation that wasn't educated on UV protection and left his head out there for the elements. I think we're educating on that sense of the need for skincare and for UV protection. We're making this skincare predominantly for ourselves. As three bald men, we wouldn't want to produce anything that we wouldn't use ourselves. And secondly, we believe in the message so much because we wish that, when we were in our twenties, there was a Bld Bro that was championing bald pride. Read more: 'I returned to my old office to sell ties after being made redundant' 'In our workplace, we look for passionate, slightly unhinged mountain climbers' Britain's 'king of billboards' who sold his business for £1bnSign in to access your portfolio
Times
15-07-2025
- Health
- Times
We baldies need more respect — not hair transplants
I was relieved when I started losing my hair. It happened at 20, in my third year at university. I woke up one morning, looked in the mirror and saw the first signs of my unruly spring of curls throwing in the towel. Finally, I thought. No more walking around like a discount Seth Rogen after a humid day. I marched straight to the barbers, asked for a No 0 and never looked back. Sure, I could have clung to those last desperate curls, hanging on like passengers on a doomed flight, but I didn't fancy being the guy everyone whispered about ('Just shave it off, mate'). So I embraced it. Bald? Fine. Turkey for a budget hair transplant? Hell, no. Honestly, losing my hair never really bothered me.
Daily Mail
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
I confronted my most shallow assumption about men... and unlocked the best sex of my life: JANA HOCKING
Recently, I found myself in a hairy situation. I accidentally stumbled into a situationship with a bald man – and he broke my heart. The worst part? He wasn't even my type.
CNN
13-05-2025
- CNN
This Oxo fogless mirror makes shaving my bald head in the shower a breeze
The Oxo fogless mirror is the type of product that I can't believe I've ever lived without. As a veteran bald dude, I love shaving my head in the shower. The steam helps me get a close, clean shave that leaves my dome nice and shiny, and there's no mess to worry about afterwards. However, since I'm flying blind, there are inevitably a few spots I still have to clean up once I get out of the shower and head to the sink — where I have to wipe down my fogged-up mirror before doing anything. So when I had the chance to test out the super-popular Oxo StrongHold Suction Fogless Shower Mirror that hundreds of people are buying every month, I was immediately intrigued. Now that I've used one for several days (and got past some small design quirks in the process), I can't imagine it ever leaving my shower. Oxo StrongHold Suction Fogless Shower Mirror The Oxo StrongHold Suction Fogless Shower Mirror makes shower shaving easy, thanks to a tool-free suction mount and a unique water reservoir that keeps things from getting too steamy. Our fashion and beauty editor Sophie Shaw was looking for volunteers to test this mirror out, and ever eager to try new stuff and step my shaving game up, I jumped at the opportunity. Thank goodness for that, because this is the kind of no-brainer gadget I somehow never thought to buy for myself. This Oxo mirror solves a problem I didn't even realize I had, all while being super easy to set up and use — after a few false starts, that is. This fogless mirror affixes to your shower wall via a simple suction cup; you just pull up a lever, stick it against your wall, pull the lever down and you're good to go. At least, that's how it's supposed to work. I could not get this thing to stay put on my wall for more than a few seconds during my first go-around, to the point where the mirror popped out of the enclosure (miraculously, it never cracked). I ended up buying a replacement to start fresh, and had a much better experience (turns out I just had to press the suction cup harder to the wall before securing it, so keep that in mind if you pick one up). Oxo also says to place the mirror on a 'clean, dry surface' and avoid placing it over any grout lines, which could mess with the suction. Once you've got the mirror holster securely affixed to the wall, you simply need to fill up the mirror's water reservoir with hot water and slide it onto the wire loop. I didn't love having to do this before every shower, but the hot water is necessary for preventing fog and condensation. And boy, does it actually work. After several showers with the StrongHold, I could see myself clearly in the roughly 9-inch-tall mirror as I shaved and washed my face. It might sound silly, but getting to actually see my head while shaving was a revelation. No more guessing and feeling around; I could just watch what's left of my hair disappear with every gentle glide of my razor, which was within immediate reach thanks to the handy holster at the bottom that'll fit most men's razors. I also like to wash my face in the shower, and being able to make sure I've properly rinsed all of my face wash away was a nice bonus. And since I can now reliably do 100% of my shaving in the shower, I don't have to wipe away any of the dreaded stubble that used to accumulate around my sink. Now that the StrongHold Suction Fogless Mirror is fastened onto my shower wall (for real this time), I can't imagine ever taking it down. Getting a proper head shave in the shower now takes me less time than ever, and as someone who's constantly running late, that alone is worth every penny of the mirror's meager $23 price tag. Is a fogless mirror the same as a fog-resistant mirror? Is a fogless mirror the same as a fog-resistant mirror? While different brands around the grooming industry seem to have varying definitions of 'fogless,' two distinct types of anti-fog mirrors showed up the most in our research. There are fogless models like this Oxo mirror and the Sproos Anti-Fog Mirror that use water reservoirs to avoid fog, and other ones, such as this popular YoHumk model, that simply claim to have an anti-fog coating. Certain shower mirrors, such as this well-rated one from Shave Well, claims to avoid fog so long as you keep it under your shower's water stream. How do you clean a fogless shower mirror? How do you clean a fogless shower mirror? Fogless mirrors don't require much upkeep in our experience, but common glass and mirror cleaners like Windex should do the trick. In the case of the Oxo StrongHold, you will need to replace the reservoir with fresh hot water before every shower in order for the anti-fog effect to work properly. CNN Underscored has a team of skilled writers and editors who have many years of experience testing, researching and recommending products, and they ensure each article is carefully edited and products are properly vetted. We talk to top experts when applicable to make certain we are testing each product accurately, recommending only the best products and considering the pros and cons of each item. Senior tech editor Mike Andronico has been doing product reviews of all manner of gadgets for more than a decade, and is always on the hunt for effective new ways to keep his head shiny and clean.
