Southside Beard Co: Simplifying beard care for men

Southside Beard Co started from an idea during lockdown and it was not an idea for beards. I decided to grow an Afro during lockdown but this proved challenging. I was getting dry hair and headaches from the constant brushing. I was using just olive oil on my hair and it was clearly not helping. I started experimenting with a mixture of Argan and Jojoba, turns out my hair felt smoother and brushing it was no longer a problem so I began to start researching carrier oils and their unique properties.

Whilst this is happening, my brother who was living with me was stealing my oil on the side and using it on his beard. Every time the mixture finished, he’d ask me to make more as it was helping him with his itchy, dry and flaky beard. From there onwards I decided to start making and testing the oils with a few of my friends who all had nothing but praise for it and Southside Beard Co was eventually launched a few months later.

What is unique about your products?

The ingredients. We do not confuse our customers with ingredients that have fancy names. All the carrier oils we use in our beard oils, we use in our beard balm, beard butters and beard washes. You’ll find other brands go all in on their beard oils in terms of ingredients but barely put the same effort into the other products they offer. We believe in the properties that the carrier oils we use have that we include them in every product. We do not attempt to save or cut corners.

What are some of the ingredients and why did you choose them to use in your products?

So, we use argan, jojoba, coconut, castor, grapeseed, sweet almond and vitamin E oils in ALL our products. We could write a whole article as to why we chose these oils but I’ll give a brief summary below:

Jojoba Oil: As our products are put on the face what better ingredient to use than Jojoba. It’s very close in chemical structure to the sebum your body natural produces to keep your skin moisturised. We found that jojoba oil is very helpful for guys that get beardruff as their skin beneath the beard dries out without proper moisturising.

Argan Oil: Prevents itchiness, split ends and ingrown hair. The list of benefits for Argan oil is extensive but those 3 are the biggest reasons as to why we included them.

Vitamin E oil: Vitamin E oil provides beard with protection from oxidative stress, free radicals and the harsh environment which it’s exposed to on a daily basis.

Your favourite product and why?

The Emperor Beard Butter. As someone who has a shorter beard (working on it 😉), the beard butter is enough to act as an all-in-one for me. Plus, the scent is amazing. Not surprising, that particular product is our bestseller too.

Any plans for this year? 

We’re growing slowly but steadily, we have a lot of plans for this year. The main one is to be able to do a pop-up show and let a variety of people see our brand. We’re looking to partner with a few local high street shops too.

As for other plans, we’re looking to release some solid beard shampoos to move away from using plastic shampoo bottles, in line with our plan to be a sustainable brand.