The first time I spent a good chunk of money on my hair, I was just entering high school. I went to Bumble & bumble, which was near my apartment at the time, and got a razor haircut, a choppy, short cut done only with a razor. I then received a “prescription” filled with all the products I needed to maintain it. I remember my mother’s face when she found out how much I spent (note: it’s dangerous to give 15-year-olds living in NYC their own credit card!). But even then there was no denying how great the salon and its products are, and the brand has only exploded since. Now the brand’s founder, Michael Gordon, has developed a new product line called Purely Perfect. Unlike most shampoos, his signature product is detergent-free and actually nourishes the hair; no conditioners or masques needed, just his cleansing cream.
We spoke to the haircare maven to find out more!
Can you tell us a little bit about your background? Have you always had a passion for hair? My mother was a hairdresser who owned her own salon in London. From the age of seven I would start spending most of my time there, meeting the women who would come to have their hair set, and sweeping the floors. I became very familiar with the workings of a salon, and enjoyed the community and commerce of the salon environment. My first apprenticeship at 15 was with Rene of Mayfair, a great salon that catered primarily to aristocrats and socialites. At 17, I went to apprentice for the younger, hipper House of Leonard (Leonard Lewis, famous for many things, but including Twiggy’s career-making cropped haircut). At 21 years old, I left to live in Johannesburg, South Africa to study yoga. Coming from London, I was too arrogant to work for anyone else, so I opened the first Bumble and bumble in 1972. Five years later, I decided to give New York a try, and opened Bumble and bumble.
To what do you attribute its huge success? The salon world in those days was divided into two schools. There were salons trained by Vidal Sassoon school that emphasized great precision, and then there were those of the French school who were rather looser in technique. I’d been schooled in both of these, and I marketed Bumble as something new: a very cool downtown salon, that just happened to be uptown. It was competitively-priced so younger, cool-types could afford it, and we started to attract a fantastic clientele. We submitted our own editorial stories to magazines that at the time quite appreciated it, and started slowly to gain more buzz. By 1978, Vogue named it one of the top 10 salons in New York. Inspired by my team of editorial stylists who didn’t care for most of the products on the market, I decided to start my own line in the mid-nineties. It quickly became the coolest product out there.
What made you branch out and start a new line? I sold Bumble and bumble in 2006, and after a few years I started thinking in a different direction. The most important question for me was: could we develop a new way to wash hair, and what would that look like? I was amazed at how many different shampoos, conditioners, masks, and treatments that companies had, and had finally woken up to the fact that it was mad. I was convinced a less-is-more approach was needed.
Can you tell us about your products? Will you be launching any more? Our star product is the Cleansing Creme, it’s one of the only detergent-free products on the market that will clean any hair type from the thinnest and finest to the thickest and coarsest. Most importantly, since there is no detergent, your hair is left feeling amazing. It totally negates the need for conditioner, masks, and those very expensive, unhealthy keratin treatments. Suddenly your hair itself starts looking better, has more life in it, and can be washed less often. Right now we have two other products, Foundation Creme, which is a grooming creme that’s perfect for creating slight texture – particularly good for curly, wavy, and thick hair; and Smooth Finish, a very light creme that gives marvelous hold – great for blow-drying or simply as a finishing product if you apply to hair and let air dry. We will be launching another product in the near future that is quite different.
Which haircare products can’t you live without? I absolutely cannot live without the Cleansing Creme, the Foundation Creme, and one of our upcoming secret products.
Which hair products do you think are over-rated? I think they’re all overrated. They’re all confusing and derivative of each other; I don’t think most hairdressers can make sense out of the amount of products and their ‘miraculous’ claims. The most overrated is the shampoo and conditioner category. The idea that one has to choose between 15 shampoos from one company is really quite ridiculous, especially as they all essentially have the same ingredients.
Any ingredients you think people should avoid at all costs when shopping for haircare products? Public Enemy Number One: Sodium Lauryl Sulfate, which is often disguised by many names, but is in fact a detergent, the same thing that is in your dishwashing liquid. People have stopped using soap on their face and bodies because it has detergent, so why are people still washing their hair with detergent?
Hair myths that drives you nuts? The newest way to get around the detergent backlash is using “naturally derived” surfactants, most popularly glucosides derived from sugar. While, yes, they are naturally-derived (so is arsenic), they are still harsh and damaging to the hair. It’s dishonest as it confuses consumers, and leads them into buying more stuff they simply don’t need.