Over the last three years, the professional hair care industry has been a witness to the rapidly increasing interest of male consumers in using professional hair care products. It is difficult to determine the exact year when barbershops started to re-emerge. According to Kline, this unique character of the present day barbershop business models also serves as comforting assurance that this trend is not just a wave that will soon disappear, but rather continue in its expansion and revenue growth.
While one could trace several factors contributing to this phenomenon, such as more professional hair care products being launched specifically for men or the greater interest from male consumers to use products with high efficacy, the root of this change is instead linked to the emergence of a new cultural shift among men focused on cultivating the sense of a natural lifestyle, strong identity, and masculinity through good grooming.
It is difficult to determine the exact year when barbershops started to re-emerge; however, the highest growth in the number of their establishments in the United States and Europe happened in 2015. The modest attempt to establish the men’s designated corners in select professional hair salons started to take place back in 2012 and was instrumental in laying the cornerstone for the establishments catering exclusively to men. While the concept of a barbershop has been regarded as being synonymous with a typical male-oriented grooming facility, its modern model has been equipped with additional functions: the place to be groomed and that of a meeting spot with friends. In this respect, it is not a coincidence that the latest wave of barbershops and manufacturers of professional male products are taking inspiration from …
