Men’s Grooming and Mental Health: Why the Routine Matters
- Adam Hyland
- 5 hours ago
- 6 min read
I'm Adam, a 28-year-old lad from Nottingham, and I'm the founder of Kick The Stigma — a male grooming brand on a mission to support men's mental health. That sentence probably sounds a bit unusual: a hair product brand and mental health support in the same breath. But stick with me, because the two are more connected than you might think.
Growing Up With Adversity
My journey didn’t start with products. Growing up, I was fortunate to be surrounded by a lot of love, joy and support (even if there was the occasional misdemeanour). But at nine years old, I lost my mum to cancer. My dad raised my twin brother and me on his own. Looking back now, what he must have been going through mentally during those years is something I find hard to fully comprehend. Seeing his resilience through adversity gave me serious drive and ambition.
I saw my dad sacrifice everything to ensure my brother and I had the resources available to do something with our lives despite the circumstances. I come back to his mental state because I think if things had been different, if he had lashed out now and again or perhaps lost his temper, you could probably excuse it, given the situation. He never did. Instead, he played mum and dad amazingly well – he knew when to listen, when to advise, when to be brutally honest, but everything was done with care. He made me even hungrier to succeed. Here is a man who could blame everything on the world, on its unfairness, on its cruelty and yet he stayed immensely strong for his two boys.
One of his greatest traits was encouraging us. Whether it was education, career or sport, he would always find the right words. To this day, he's still at it. The power of someone believing in you shouldn't be underestimated. There have been periods in my life when I didn’t feel confident in who I was, when I seriously doubted myself. It was usually Dad’s words that got me through. That's the feeling I wanted to capture with Kick The Stigma.
Raisa's Barbers: More Than a Haircut
After moving to London for university, I planned to pursue a career as an investment banker. Instead, I ended up working for a life-changing mentor who asked me if I would like to run his barbershop. But I wasn’t a barber, and I knew nothing about the industry. I could hear my dad on my shoulder, saying, “Go for it.”
I launched Raisa's Barbers in West London in 2022 with one goal: to be more than just a barbershop. I quickly recognised what a barbershop can be for a local community. More importantly, the role a barber can play for men. In a trusted and familiar environment, men can open up about relationships, work, family and mental health. My biggest assumption was that barbers “just cut hair,” but it is so much more than that. They're actively listening, building confidence, and helping people feel better than when they walked in.
What struck me most was the trust involved. We all know the ‘typical’ relationship women have with their hairdressers, yet I’d never heard it spoken about when it comes to men and their barbers. They create a safe space. But when people ask me how men open up or what the secret is, I always say, in this context, it starts with a good haircut. You aren’t going to open up to someone if you’re concerned about their ability. Again – trust.
The need to have safe spaces for men to open up is clear. Men are three times more likely to take their own lives than women. Suicide is the biggest cause of death for men under 35. Yet only 33% of NHS referrals for talking therapies are for men.
This led us to TrimTalk, a campaign we pioneered in partnership with Westminster City Council. The council wanted to help tackle men’s mental health, and it just so happened that one of our customers was a councillor. He knew the work we were doing, and so we came up with an idea together. The idea was simple: train barbers as Mental Health First Aiders so they could recognise signs of distress, offer initial support, and point people towards help. No clinical environment. A trusted barber, but now better equipped. The campaign got picked up by BBC News and BBC Radio, which wonderfully amplified the message.
Kicking the Stigma Beyond the Shop
We wanted to take that energy further. So, we launched the Kick The Stigma Football Tournament, an annual event in partnership with the charity AllKind. The partnership came about because, fortuitously, at an awards event we were randomly sat next to Allkind, formerly West Central London Mind. Allkind is a London mental health charity supporting thousands of people through services including talking therapies, peer and community support, suicide prevention and bereavement services, housing support, children and young people’s services, and mental health training.
Having seen first-hand how often barbers become trusted confidants for their clients, we wanted to do more to support mental health beyond the four walls of the shop. Sport gave us another non-clinical way into the conversation. No one feels like they're going to a mental health-inspired event when they're lacing up their boots. The football tournament created opportunities to raise awareness and encourage communal conversations that might not otherwise happen.
But here's the thing I kept coming back to: we could support men for an hour in the chair every few weeks. The football tournament happens once a year. If mental health is 24/7, how do we support men every day?
Bringing Positive Messages to the Daily Grooming Routine
That question is what created the male grooming brand Kick The Stigma. Every man has a daily grooming routine. Washing their hair, styling it, getting themselves ready to face the day. That moment happens most days. And it hit me: that's where we can show up and try to impact confidence.
When you feel better about how you look, it affects how you feel inside. We all know the feeling. Grooming has lost its vanity stigma. Men are investing in themselves, and that's a good thing.
Instead of trying to engage men with traditional mental health campaigns, we created a brand that meets them where they already are. We include messages on our packaging like, "keep going", "trust yourself", and "keep making them proud." It’s a small thing. But I know from my dad how much a few words of encouragement can mean. For me, every day, I’m trying to make my mum and dad proud.
What I Want People to Take Away
Self-care is often one of the first things to disappear when someone is struggling. Small habits, like styling your hair and getting yourself ready, can feel insignificant. But they're acts of rebuilding confidence and routine. I saw Dean Windass, a former Premier League footballer and Hull City legend, talk about his "Make Your Bed" campaign once. After retiring, Windass spoke openly about his struggles with depression, alcohol and two suicide attempts, and has since become a prominent advocate for men talking more openly about their mental health.
His “Make Your Bed” campaign grew from his own experience of poor mental health and the importance of taking small, achievable steps when life feels overwhelming. The idea is deliberately simple: get out of bed, make it, and take that first positive action of the day. Windass has repeatedly used his platform to encourage people who are struggling to get up, keep moving and, crucially, talk to somebody rather than suffering alone. Making your bed might seem trivial. But anyone who's done it knows it makes a difference mentally. Of course, if someone is struggling significantly, I will always recommend professional support. It is why we signpost these organisations on our website.
If Kick The Stigma can help even a few men feel more confident or more comfortable speaking openly, then we're doing what we set out to do. Funnily enough, 30% of our customers so far have been women. It tells me everyone feels a responsibility to encourage change when it comes to men’s mental health.
