robert the founder - why i started making MAILROOM hair products
when i was a teenager i was so insecure about my hair. i am also quite particular. deadly combo. i could never get it to look quite right. it always looked frizzy or amorphous. axe gel and a faux hawk with the occasional mohawk were as close as i could get to a style that felt like me. a lot of my friends had silky straight hair and could do the scene-kid swoosh cut but my hair would never do it. a buzz cut didn’t feel edgy enough and a mohawk felt corny.
then i found the haircut.
i remember the exact moment i saw the bass player of a hardcore/punk band with a greaser cut and a skin fade. i thought “now THAT is a haircut i could work with.” this was like 2010. i learned that they kept it greasy with POMADE, this mysterious oily, waxy substance. i went to walgreens and bought some murrays. i got an ok cut from a salon, went home and greased down my bushy hair, and for the first time in my life i liked the way it looked. i felt like me.
the haircuts weren’t great so i started cutting my own hair. i would sit in front of a mirror for a couple of hours getting the fade just right. (yes, i’m diagnosed, certified, OCD) i quickly formed an obsession with becoming a barber and making pomade as i found brands like The Iron Society and Layrite. i was at a point in my life where being a musician wasn’t cutting it and i needed one of my hobbies to pan out. the culture and craft around barbering and the pomade world was right up my alley so i dove in head first.
when i first started cutting hair, i would meet people on their porches, garages, or wherever we could set up a chair near an outlet. the mobile barber gig was getting old. thankfully, a friend of mine owned a business in downtown florence, where i’m from, and he was nice enough to let me set up an old barber chair in the back, in his mailroom. i would see clients there and style their hair with a pomade i’d cooked up in my mom’s kitchen. it wasn’t long before i dropped out of college and enrolled in an apprenticeship at a barbershop.
i set out to make a pomade with all of the qualities i wanted - the right balance of shine, hold, and workability. i wanted oversight on everything - the cleanest ingredients from reputable sources, the label design, the way the lid fit the jar. i loved tinkering with every detail. i was learning a lot about supply chains and how nasty the business can be so i got obsessed with ethical sourcing and plant-based ingredients. i tested dozens of recipes written from scratch, completely winging it, and landed on a product that was our flagship for years: the classic pomade. the MAILROOM BARBER brand was born. it was 2014.
i was fortunate to join the budding renaissance of pomade home-brewers as i started pursuing my career as a barber, opening my own shop and building a team. we ran a boot-strapped operation for years where one room of the barbershop was our production facility, the others where we saw clients. the brand blew up and we started shipping orders to countries all over the world. we couldn’t believe it!
over the years we experimented with tons of products. deodorant, mustache wax, candles, you name it. recently it came time to cull the line and get back to the essentials. the products we make now are the absolute must-haves in the barbershop. they’re the products we use with our clients every day. we’ve meticulously tested and formulated each product to perfect the details. based on my experience as a master barber with over a decade under my belt, these are the products you need.
- robert watkins
