Floyd's Barbershop Releases CBD Hair Care Line

Floyd's 99 Barbershop, a Colorado-based chain of rock-and-roll-themed barbershops, was founded by brothers Bill, Rob and Paul O'Brien in 1999 (hence the "99" in the name). Since opening their first location in Denver in 2001, they've expanded to fifteen states in total, with over 125 locations across the country. And now the O'Briens are expanding into CBD, too.

Rad.i.cle, the company's CBD hair care line, contains three products infused with hemp-derived CBD: a restoring shampoo, a nourishing conditioner and a stimulating scalp treatment. After a year of testing, the products are now available online or in Floyd's barbershops. Utilizing vegan and sulfate-free formulas, the CBD hair care is meant for all hair types and textures, but is especially effective for people with dry, irritated scalps or hair prone to breakage, according to Floyd's. To find out more about the rad.i.cle line and the potential benefits of CBD hair care, we chatted with Floyd's creative and technical education director Patrick Butler.

Westword: Why did Floyd's 99 want to create a CBD hair care line?

Patrick Butler: The simple answer: We knew that CBD was a really hot topic. It’s grown in so many different facets in our world and into different product ranges. We knew that in the hair care space, it was just starting to really take hold, but we wanted to research and understand what the impact was. After doing so, we realized the benefits of focusing on enriching and stimulating the scalp. And when you do that, you’re really focusing on nourishing the hair follicle and promoting longevity. In other words, you want to create a really great space for the hair to stay and then maintain the health of it. That’s where CBD really struck a nerve with us, because we found the benefits to be very powerful.

How did you go about developing the product formulas? What was the research process like?

There are a lot of studies out there that focus on CBD, but they focus on different areas of the body. Obviously, what we care about is what does it do for the scalp and hair in particular? There are a lot of articles that you can peruse, but we got in touch with a lot of experts that have been focused on CBD and other natural organic components, and in doing so, we realized that they’d done such a good job of understanding the different levels of CBD that you might use. Once we dialed in with that, we felt comfortable integrating that into a shampoo, a conditioner and a stimulating therapy. That regimen right there really helped us home in on how we could focus on the hair and scalp.

What are the main benefits of incorporating CBD into your hair care routine?

For each one of us, no matter who we are, our scalp and the hair follicles we have are really critical, because that's what keeps your hair on your head and allows growth. CBD is interesting because that ingredient alone has multiple benefits. It allows us to penetrate into the scalp and promote a great environment. It’s really about restoring the balance of your microbiome. CBD is a great anti-inflammatory product. A lot of people have a dry scalp, and because of that, hydration is a key issue. You need to nourish the scalp there. You also have people that fight very normal conditions like dandruff or psoriasis.

If someone has one of those two challenges, we know that that produces itchiness and scaling of the skin. The CBD goes in, and that anti-inflammatory capability reduces it. It takes away the pink itchy areas, it reduces the scaling, and we’ve seen so many examples in testing where it’s just reduced that tremendously. The anti-inflammatory properties are crucial, but I don’t want to necessarily pigeonhole it just for people with those issues, because CBD also goes into the follicle and helps keep that follicle in place. People start losing their hair or thinning as they age naturally, and CBD actually protects that area of the follicle so it’s maintained and strengthened, and you keep your hair on your head longer. It hits so many bases for so many people.

So it sounds like even though we’re referring to this as CBD hair care, it’s really more like scalp-specific skin care.

Absolutely. People just lose sight of that. You think of shampoo as washing your hair — and you are, you’re cleansing your hair — but you actually should be cleansing your scalp and trying to help it keep your hair on your head.

Some studies suggest that other minor cannabinoids can sometimes be detrimental to hair. Does rad.i.cle use CBD isolate or full-spectrum oil?

It's isolate. People do get lost in that, and one thing we’ve had to fight is the misconception about what CBD is because of where it is derived from. We actually had to create an FAQ page on our website because we’ve literally had people ask us if it will show up on a drug test.

Are these products designed for a particular hair type, or are they meant to be universal?

The good news is that they are universal. We were adamant about that. When you’re talking about different hair types and textures, it’s important right now to have an awareness. We’re seeing such a beautiful blend of textures now behind the chair, and we really felt strongly about creating a product that speaks to everyone. Example: If we have someone who has color-treated hair, they want to protect their color. A lot of products will strip it away. We felt good about what we were doing with rad.i.cle, because we knew it would be color-safe. We eliminated any sulfates, so it’s sulfate-free, and DEA-free, and we got rid of a lot of the parabens you have to deal with preservative-wise. Because of that, anybody can use it.

Where does Floyd's source its CBD from?

We work with a couple of key manufacturers in California. The reason we do that is California is very stringent on ingredient usage in products. We felt very comfortable with the way they approach the ingredients, because we were trying to reduce the number of synthetic agents in the products. We source it through some of the manufacturers that we do business with in California, simply because of the standards they uphold when they source and utilize the ingredients. When you’re dealing with some of the natural ingredients, you really want to make sure they’re pure sources versus synthetic. That really meant a lot to us. So we felt strongly that they could handle pure ingredients and botanicals to make a good product.

Floyd's 99 Barbershops are also now offering the “rad.i.cle experience,” a treatment using these three products. Can you talk more about that?

There are three products in the line: the restore shampoo, the nourishing conditioner and a stimulating therapy. They’re titled that way for a reason, because with shampoo you’re restoring balance to the scalp, and then the conditioner is nourishing the hair strand as well as the scalp. But then it gets interesting with the stimulate therapy. The reason we created the service experience is that we’re trying to expose people to how it feels; there is actually a sensory experience when you use it. The stimulate therapy is meant to be used maybe once or twice a week, before your shampoo and conditioner.

The service experience at Floyd’s is the same. We put the stimulate therapy on and give you a scalp massage, and we leave it on for one to three minutes. You’re going to smell the nice peppermint base, and you’ll feel a tingling sensation on your scalp. You apply your conditioner to seal everything and nourish. Your scalp is going to react. When we stimulate blood flow to the follicle, it’s actually feeding and nourishing it. That sensation is a good thing. We’ve got a really cool experience in the shop, and you can take it home and do it yourself. I use the stimulate therapy twice a week and the shampoo and conditioner every day, and I love this stuff.

Does Floyd's 99 plan to expand the rad.i.cle line in the future?

It’s interesting that you bring that up, because we’ve talked about it, but any addition has to be with intention. When we started our Floyd’s grooming line, it was with the intention to fill in gaps where we didn’t see something or have something performing to the level that we wanted. With rad.i.cle having a CBD base, we knew there was a giant gap there that we could fill. When we talk about adding more to the rad.i.cle line, to be honest with you, we wanted to see how this was going to be received, and so far it’s been received extremely well. But we don’t just want to add CBD to everything. Because the addition of CBD in these particular products served a tremendous purpose. If I add it to a pomade or a cream, you won’t receive the full benefit that you do with these products, so adding it would be just chasing something that isn’t really there.