Vancouver cousins launch hair-care line for men

B.C. cousins Brendan and Joel Graves are betting big on the interest in homegrown brands and businesses with their Canadian-made men’s hair-care brand Headgains.

But, to the duo, it’s about more than just tapping into a trend. It’s also about offering a line of locally made styling products that can do better. As the two family members entered their 30s — their dads are twin brothers — they began noticing their own hair loss and wondered what they could do about it.

“We don’t think men should have to choose between a styling product that performs and one that is thoughtfully formulated with their hair in mind,” says Joel Graves of the main motivation behind their brand.

We caught up with the co-founders to learn more:

Brendan Graves: Headgains is a Vancouver-founded premium men’s hair styling brand that my cousin Joel and I launched in 2025. We started with a pretty simple question: ‘What if the product you use in your hair every day could do more than just style it?’

That became the idea behind Headgains — high-performance styling products formulated with targeted ingredients to help thicken and optimize hair. Our products are designed, developed and manufactured in Canada, and we recently reached a major milestone with our launch at Simons in all 19 stores across Canada and online.

Joel Graves: For us, it’s the combination of performance and function. We saw an opportunity to create men’s styling products that deliver the hold, texture and finish you expect from a premium product, while also being formulated to do more for your hair.

We developed our Headgains Preventative Maintenance (HGPM) formula, a blend of nine naturally derived, science-backed ingredients specifically chosen for their benefits to help thicken and optimize hair: saw palmetto extract, pumpkin seed oil, green tea extract, salicylic acid, niacinamide B3, rosemary extract, ceramides, panthenol B5 and bamboo silica.

Being Canadian is also an important part of the brand. Headgains was founded in Vancouver, and our products are formulated and manufactured here in Canada.

Brendan Graves: We created Headgains for men who want more from the products they use every day. Our customer cares about having great-looking hair and wants a styling product that performs, but he’s also increasingly conscious of ingredients and hair health. Our products are designed for anyone looking for premium men’s styling with added function.

Joel Graves: We launched Headgains with two products that we developed alongside each other: Best Head Paste and Big Slick Pomade. Both are formulated with our HGPM ingredients but designed for different styling preferences.

Best Head Paste has a matte finish with medium-to-firm hold and is great for adding texture, volume and thickness, while Big Slick Pomade offers a more polished, natural finish with medium hold. Best Head Paste has become our bestseller, but both products represent what we want Headgains to be — premium styling products that combine performance with function.

We’re now working on expanding the Headgains line, and customer feedback is a big part of that. We love hearing what people want from their styling products and using that feedback as we think about what comes next.

Brendan Graves: Our two products retail for $34.50.

Joel Graves: Headgains is now available at all 19 Simons stores across Canada and online through Simons. You can also find us at headgains.com and on Instagram at @headgains.