Our mission is to provide plant-made alternatives to the unearthly products that dominate the shelves today. You are here with us because you choose real over fake, natural over synthetic. If you’ve not yet tried our products, you’ll immediately recognize the feeling you get when you touch and use them - it’s like a walk through an unkept forest, or a dive into a fresh water spring - these are earthly things, organized in a way that serve your skin and heal your body
Since 2017 Church Barber’s mission has been to bring plant-made personal care alternatives to where they are needed most, the barbershop. The barbershop has enabled us to learn needs directly from barbers and customers, and we then create products to meet those needs, from styling products to skincare and everything in between. When creating Church Barber we sought to create a space that itself is inspired, where every detail is considered, and where barbers and customers can share the ritual of grooming in a place that raises the bar. Today passersby are drawn inside by the smell of fresh earthly aromas that flood the doorway, from the plant oils we make our hot and cold towels with, to the neroli water spraying about as we finish a close shave.
Having grown up with a mother who raised her to make her own products for daily grooming, from soap to toothpaste, Bea has only ever used natural products. She’s repulsed by synthetics of all kind. As we were getting to know each other, she was shocked to find the products in my bathroom; I recall her reading the ingredient lists slack-jawed. A look of horror on her face, she seemed surprised I could still be alive after years of using the products I was using. At the time, lay-rite was my pomade of choice, and the synthetic smells gave her such a headache that she offered to create a product for me, promising it would both work better and be better for me. No surprise, considering we’re here now, she delivered on that promise.
Years later, after our first first daughter was born, and we had settled back to my hometown of San Francisco, we decided to bring the products she was making for our family to market. It was Bea’s idea to focus on men first, and specifically styling products, because it was these products that we found to be the most egregious offenders.
Church Barber’s “church” is the barber shop, it’s an offering of a space where every detail is considered, and where our community and our customers can experience the ritual of grooming, in a place that inspires them.
Welcome to Church California,
Ryan & Beatrice Gonzalez
